National Palace Museum (NPM) masterpieces, including the famed “meat-shaped stone” are to be exhibited in Sydney for the first time starting next month, Australian Office Taipei Representative Gary Cowan announced yesterday.
Cowan made the announcement at a ceremony in Taipei celebrating Australia’s national day, which falls on Saturday, as he recounted achievements in bilateral relations since he took up the post in January last year.
“From February, the Art Gallery of New South Wales in Sydney will host ‘Heaven and Earth in Chinese Art,’ a collection of some of the most treasured pieces in the NPM’s collection,” Cowan said.
Photo: Lin Cheng-kung, Taipei Times
In return, the National Museum of Australia is to send some of Australia’s national treasures, including a collection of bark painting masterpieces by Aboriginal artists, to the NPM later this year, he said.
The Art Gallery of New South Wales’ Web site says that the exhibition, which is to open on Feb. 2 and run through May 5, features 87 items ranging from paintings, calligraphy, illustrated books and bronzes, to ceramics and jade, including the banded jasper in the shape of a piece of braised pork belly from the Qing Dynasty.
“As we share our treasures, we create trust, we create cooperation and we create a better future for ourselves,” Cowan said.
Minister of Foreign Affairs Joseph Wu (吳釗燮) said that the exchange of exhibitions is an important event that could facilitate mutual understanding and friendship between Taiwan and Australia, which is home to 18,000 Taiwanese students and 16,000 Taiwanese participating in Australia’s working holiday program.
Since President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) took office in 2016, bilateral ties have grown stronger, as evidenced by a nearly 18 percent growth in trade and a 24-fold increase in Taiwanese investment in Australia in 2017, Wu said.
The two nations have also seen closer cooperation in the areas of education, science, agriculture and tourism, Wu added.
The CIA has a message for Chinese government officials worried about their place in Chinese President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) government: Come work with us. The agency released two Mandarin-language videos on social media on Thursday inviting disgruntled officials to contact the CIA. The recruitment videos posted on YouTube and X racked up more than 5 million views combined in their first day. The outreach comes as CIA Director John Ratcliffe has vowed to boost the agency’s use of intelligence from human sources and its focus on China, which has recently targeted US officials with its own espionage operations. The videos are “aimed at
STEADFAST FRIEND: The bills encourage increased Taiwan-US engagement and address China’s distortion of UN Resolution 2758 to isolate Taiwan internationally The Presidential Office yesterday thanked the US House of Representatives for unanimously passing two Taiwan-related bills highlighting its solid support for Taiwan’s democracy and global participation, and for deepening bilateral relations. One of the bills, the Taiwan Assurance Implementation Act, requires the US Department of State to periodically review its guidelines for engagement with Taiwan, and report to the US Congress on the guidelines and plans to lift self-imposed limitations on US-Taiwan engagement. The other bill is the Taiwan International Solidarity Act, which clarifies that UN Resolution 2758 does not address the issue of the representation of Taiwan or its people in
DEFENDING DEMOCRACY: Taiwan shares the same values as those that fought in WWII, and nations must unite to halt the expansion of a new authoritarian bloc, Lai said The government yesterday held a commemoration ceremony for Victory in Europe (V-E) Day, joining the rest of the world for the first time to mark the anniversary of the end of World War II in Europe. Taiwan honoring V-E Day signifies “our growing connections with the international community,” President William Lai (賴清德) said at a reception in Taipei on the 80th anniversary of V-E Day. One of the major lessons of World War II is that “authoritarianism and aggression lead only to slaughter, tragedy and greater inequality,” Lai said. Even more importantly, the war also taught people that “those who cherish peace cannot
US Indo-Pacific Commander Admiral Samuel Paparo on Friday expressed concern over the rate at which China is diversifying its military exercises, the Financial Times (FT) reported on Saturday. “The rates of change on the depth and breadth of their exercises is the one non-linear effect that I’ve seen in the last year that wakes me up at night or keeps me up at night,” Paparo was quoted by FT as saying while attending the annual Sedona Forum at the McCain Institute in Arizona. Paparo also expressed concern over the speed with which China was expanding its military. While the US
RSS