www.chinaview.cn 2009-01-21 18:52:49

BEIJING , Jan. 21 (Xinhua) -- A mainland official Wednesday welcomed discussions between Beijing's Palace Museum and Taipei's "National Palace Museum" regarding joint exhibitions.

"We are glad to see the two museums to work together and improve exchanges," said Yang Yi, the State Council Taiwan Affairs Office spokesman, at a press conference.

Taipei's "National Palace Museum" is known for its rich collection taken from Beijing's former Imperial Palace, or the Forbidden City, in 1949 at the end of China's civil war.

Then Kuomintang (KMT) government shipped 2,972 boxes of about 600,000 items from Beijing to Taipei, most of which were very valuable.

The two museums have never worked together, but in 1992 they both collaborated with a Hong Kong-based publisher on the book, "The Best of National Treasures" about their collections.

Beijing's Palace Museum had agreed to lend 17 items to Taipei for a special exhibition about Emperor Yongzheng (1678-1735) of the Qing Dynasty, Fung Ming-chu, deputy director of Taipei's "National Palace Museum", told Xinhua in Taipei earlier this month.

They will be displayed with 148 other items in Taipei in October.

"This is the first reunion of the collections since they were kept under the same roof 60 years ago," Fung said.

Chou Kung-shin, the Taipei museum director, would visit the Palace Museum in Beijing for the first time next month and was expecting his Beijing counterpart, Zheng Xinmiao, to visit Taipei in March, she said.

The two sides had put forward several proposals for joint exhibitions, she said. "I think we have great potential of cooperation. For instance, we hope to talk about cooperation in restoring cultural relics."