Taiwan's storied Palace Museum must expand its global horizons, president says

By Ben Blanchard

Taiwan's National Palace Museum, home to one of the world's biggest collections of imperial Chinese treasures, must expand its horizons internationally to let the "world see Taiwan", President Lai Ching-te said on Friday as it marked its centenary.

The museum was re-established in Taiwan in 1965 after the Republic of China government lost a civil war with Mao Zedong's communists and fled to the island in 1949, taking with them thousands of cases of antiques once owned by China's emperors, saving them from destruction during and after the revolution.

While it is a top tourist attraction, the presence of so many Chinese artefacts has over the years caused discomfort to those Taiwanese who champion the island's separate and distinct identity from China.

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Speaking to inaugurate an exhibit of French impressionist and early modernist paintings from New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art, Lai said the National Palace Museum was a "state asset".

"The National Palace Museum not only needs to deepen its roots locally, it also needs to deepen them internationally. We need to go into the world, to let the world see Taiwan, but also to bring the world to Taiwan," he said at the museum, located in Taipei's foothills.

"The National Palace Museum is not only the National Palace Museum of Taiwan, but also the National Palace Museum of the world, and I believe these values should be strongly supported by the international community."

A competing institution remains in Beijing, the similarly named Palace Museum, though the National Palace Museum is not planning any joint anniversary events with China.

Quincy Houghton, the Met's Deputy Director for Exhibitions and International Initiatives, speaking at the event with Lai, praised the close relations between the museums, including in 1996 when the National Palace Museum sent some of its collection to the Met.

"We are honoured to collaborate with the National Palace Museum on its very special centennial year," she said.

Works by Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Vincent van Gogh and Paul Cézanne are on show at the National Palace Museum until mid-October.