The drama was played out far away, but in the Taiwanese museum environment, it is still experienced very closely.
By occupying eastern and southern Ukraine, after the start of the invasion war that began six months ago, Russian forces have not only taken control of part of Ukrainian territory. They also looted its works of art, its heritage, including vestiges of the ancient civilization of the Scythians, dating from the IVe century BC. J.-C., exposed in the museum of regional history of Melitopol, or of the major parts of the artist Arkhip Kuindzhi and the Russian romantic painter Ivan Aivazovsky held by the Kuindzhi museum of Mariupol.
In Lviv, the cultural capital of Ukraine, the sudden outbreak of this war, in which many Ukrainians did not believe, forced the employees of the National Museum Andrey Sheptytsky to hastily pack fundamental pieces of his collection. These works, which testify to the historical richness of Ukraine, have been protected from enemy strikes and the Kremlin’s stated desire to eradicate the culture of this country.
A disaster scenario that the National Palace Museum in Taipei had never considered for itself, but which, for several months, in the wake of this European war and under the constant pressure of a China which calls for regaining control of Taiwan’s young democracy, is now part of its new reality.
Last July, the institution that sits at the top of the small Yangmingshan hill, in an outlying district of the Taiwanese capital, indeed held its very first “war preparation exercise” in more than 70 years of history. This contingency plan aimed to prepare for the safeguarding of some 700,000 pieces of Chinese art held by this museum, which has the largest collection of Asian handicrafts in the world, and this, in view of a war with China which will becomes less and less hypothetical.
Treasures saved from the purges
“We have always been cautious and prepared in the face of risks, drops in an interview at the To have to Mi-Cha Wu, director of the National Palace Museum, met one morning in July at the foot of the institution. Natural disasters, terrorism since the turn of the century, but never the outbreak of war. Ukraine encouraged us to accelerate our preparation by teaching us to be ready for war at all times, because it remains unpredictable. »
In withdrawing to the island of Taiwan in 1949, after the victory of the Communists in the civil war, the government of Chiang Kai-shek took with it thousands of pieces from the collections of the imperial palace of the Forbidden City in Beijing, collected from 1914 by China, and who have since founded those of the National Palace Museum in Taiwan.
These calligraphies, paintings, bronzes dating from the Qing, but also Song, Yuan and Ming dynasties, were thus spared during the cultural purges led by Mao Tse-tung between the 1960s and 1970s. were destroyed during Mao’s campaign against the “Four Oldies”: ancient customs, culture, habits and ideas.
We are just a museum, we understand conservation, art, heritage, history, but not war. The preparation exercise was carried out with the collaboration of members of Taiwan’s national defense, civil security and political power.
Last March, Mi-Cha Wu appeared before the Taiwanese legislature to express to elected officials his concerns about the prospect of a Chinese attack on Taiwan and its consequences on the Museum’s collections. He called for them to be partly moved to a place less easy for Beijing to target. A major challenge on this island territory with an almost permanent humid climate throughout the year.
“We are only a museum, we understand conservation, art, heritage, history, but not war,” says the director. The preparation exercise was carried out with the collaboration of members of Taiwan’s national defense, civil security and political power. »
The place chosen to store the works has not been disclosed.
A hiding place abroad?
“It’s hard to say which pieces might be of interest to Chinese forces,” Wu said. “Paintings from 800 to 900 years old or calligraphy from 1,000 years old might be among them, because of their high value.” Ironically, the museum’s collection, having survived the Mao years, also reinforces the idea that the Kuomintang (KMT), the party of Chiang Kai-shek, who founded Taiwan, is the true guardian of Chinese culture, what Beijing seeks to deny by trying to bring the island, which has become a flourishing democracy over the course of its history, back into its fold.
At the end of July, the Museum denied the information that part of its collection had already taken the road to the United States and Japan to be sheltered there from a possible war. Mi-Cha Wu even claims not to have had any exchanges with museum institutions in other countries during the implementation of his contingency plan. But he adds that he is not closed to the idea of cooperation in this direction.
“If the war were to occur, we are not going to be a priority, as a museum, for the services of defense and protection of the territory. They will be more focused on the protection of civilians and infrastructure, he said. That’s why we have to face this eventuality alone, with the resources we have,” he concludes.
With the collaboration of Alisa Chih Yun Chen
This report was funded by
in support of the Journalism Fund
international Transat-The duty.