Chinese Tourists Deluge Taiwan

Travel Blog  •  Julia Ross  •  04.02.09 | 10:13 AM ET

It got off to a slow start, but a long-awaited travel agreement between China and Taiwan, forged last summer, has finally yielded a huge bump in mainland tourists traveling to the island.

That’s great news for Taiwan’s struggling economy, but Taipei’s National Palace Museum—home to the world’s finest collection of Chinese art, much of it taken from the mainland during the Chinese civil war—is overwhelmed. Some 63,000 mainland Chinese visited the museum in March, prompting new policies on crowd control and enforcing silence among visitors, along with plans to expand and renovate parts of the building.

Chinese are eager to see the museum because of the controversial history of its collection, viewed as “stolen,” from Beijing’s perspective. But they’re also likely to get a political eye-opener as they wait in line on the museum’s expansive front steps. It’s a favorite spot for the Falun Gong to set up shop, illustrating, quite nicely in my view, what a Chinese democracy looks like.

Tags: Museums, Politics, Asia, Taiwan, Shrinking Planet

Julia Ross is a Washington, DC-based writer and frequent contributor to World Hum. She has lived in China and Taiwan, where she was a Fulbright scholar and Mandarin student. Her writing has appeared in the Washington Post, Time, Christian Science Monitor, Plenty and other publications. Her essay, Six Degrees of Vietnam, was shortlisted for "The Best American Travel Writing 2009."


3 Comments for Chinese Tourists Deluge Taiwan

sview 04.02.09 | 11:22 AM ET

“Stolen”?

“Rescued” is probably a better description—rescued from the massive destruction wrought by Mao and the Red Guards during the Cultural Revolution.

And could it be that the museum is popular not because of the “controversy” surrounding the artifacts, but because it houses the greatest collection of Chinese artifacts in the world? I think that’s the major draw—a celebration and honoring of China’s ancient history and thousands of years of civilization.

Incidentally, I’ve met several Chinese people who have expressed how glad they are that Taiwan has been able to protect traditional Chinese culture and keep the flame alive.

Julia Ross 04.02.09 | 1:14 PM ET

Sure, the collection itself is world class but its provenance certainly stokes interest from the Chinese side. And yes, there are Chinese who appreciate Taiwan for preserving traditional culture. At the same time, the museum has always been a highly sensitive point in cross-strait relations and the Chinese government has not renounced its right to seize items from the National Palace Museum when they travel to China, or elsewhere abroad.

Astroboy 05.28.09 | 8:50 AM ET

It is a common view among the Chinese people in the mainland that it was a blessing in disguise the national treasures where moved to Taiwan.  Had it not been moved, much of it would have been destroyed by the Red Guards during the cultural revolution.  Red guards did destroy much cultural treasure, books, desecrate temples, and historical sites in China. 

For example, the bodies of the Ming Emporers in Ding Ling (13 tombs) were dragged and burned. And the priceless silks, gold, and other treasures form the tomb where taken by the Red Guards.  It is after this episode that PRC forbid all future excavation of tombs.

In fact, the national treasure were constantly on the move from the Sino-Japanese war for nearly 30 years within China, by the Nationalist Chinese to prevent the Japanese from taking the treasures.  Finally after the fall of China to the communist, the treasure were moved to Taiwan, stored in the atomic shelter like bunker underneath the National Palace Museum in Taipei.  Thus preserving these treasures for future generations.

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