Why Taiwan’s National Palace Museum controversy is more than a storm in a teacup
- The museum has once again become intertwined with a larger political and emotional conversation about Taiwanese identity, the legacy of the martial law era and the future of the island
The government has denied that a name change is in the offing and maintains that the possible downgrade is about simplifying the bureaucracy and in line with how other national museums operate. But any change to the museum will inspire emotional responses that reverberate beyond Taiwan.
Visitors flocked to it to see both the architectural wonders of the emperor’s compound and the artefacts. Items from this collection began circulating, likely stolen or sold by the eunuchs who lived there. My father, a high-ranking general in the Nationalist army, recommended an inventory be taken of the remaining artefacts to prevent the disappearance of any important relics.
Theft was not the only threat the museum faced, and its peaceful operation in Beijing was short-lived. When Japan invaded Manchuria in 1931, anxieties began to grow about the safety of the museum’s artefacts. With Japanese forces threatening the entire northeast, it was decided that the artefacts would be sent deeper into China’s south and west.
This proved a massive undertaking, and it was only through heroic exploits that the artefacts successfully eluded Japanese forces. When the war ended in 1945, officials had hardly begun to unpack the artefacts when the resumption of the Chinese civil war once again imperilled the museum’s fate.
In 1948, with the situation growing more dire for the Nationalists, Chiang Kai-shek ordered the artefacts’ relocation to Taiwan. Defections, interceptions and delays kept the bulk of the artefacts on the mainland before the end of the war, yet the most prized pieces made it to Taiwan.
In addition to preserving China’s cultural treasures, the museum’s establishment in Taipei was also orchestrated in part to “Sinicise” the island, which had been under Japanese control for half a century.
When the martial law era in Taiwan ended, the museum’s role in shaping the islands’ national identity became more complicated. The museum’s ties to both the mainland and the Kuomintang first became a political issue during Chen Shui-bian’s tenure as Taiwan’s president from 2000 to 2008.
Representing the independence-leaning Democratic Progressive Party, Chen sought to emphasise a Taiwanese identity separate from the mainland. Textbooks were rewritten to tell the island’s history without emphasising a Chinese perspective. A reckoning with the martial law period prompted the removal and renaming of statues and tributes to Chiang Kai-shek.
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In 2007, the museum’s charter was amended to reflect its mission to archive “domestic and foreign” art. In 2016, it opened a Southern Branch in Chiayi which highlighted art and cultural ties across Asia instead of exclusively focusing on Chinese culture.
The museum has become intertwined with the larger conversation about “de-Sinicisation” involving political and emotional debates about Taiwanese identity, the legacy of the martial law era and the future of the island.
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KMT congressional delegate Chen Li-hsu’s statement in September that the museum’s artefacts belong to the party as it was the KMT that brought them to Taiwan is one such manifestation of this dynamic. In response, Chen Po-wei of the independence-supporting Taiwan Statebuilding Party suggested that the artefacts belong to the descendants of the last emperor Puyi, making them the property of former National Security Council secretary general King Pu-tsung, purported to be a descendant of Puyi.
The government subsequently countered that the museum’s artefacts are national treasures and not the property of any party or individual.
The idea that these relics, which tell the story of China’s history, civilisation and culture, could be claimed by any political party or man is shameful. The museum and Chinese history need not become entangled in the debate over the island’s identity and the future of its government.
Current and upcoming exhibitions at the museum give no indication of the political controversy. Instead, it continues to highlight China’s culture through exhibits featuring bronzes and porcelain of the Qianlong period, the history of calligraphy and the evolution of Buddhism.
The museum remains one of the most-visited, respected museums in the world because of its unparalleled capacity to serve as a window into centuries of Chinese civilisation. Having endured for nearly a century despite existential threats and regime changes, it should continue to operate and educate without political interference.
It would be a tragedy for the world if the museum’s ability to operate freely and to preserve Chinese culture became a casualty of politics.
Chi Wang, a former head of the Chinese section of the US Library of Congress, is president of the US-China Policy Foundation
