Tracing a palm-sized jade pig resting on its haunches, an antique trader in Taiwan said the ears on the nearly 400-year-old piece are a marker of its authenticity.
“The folds in the pig’s ears show the handiwork, the ancient handicraft” of the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644), said the 60-year-old trader, who would only provide his last name as Lee. “It takes very careful carving. If it were duplicates, they wouldn’t make it that delicate and detailed.”
Lee’s shop in Taipei’s Daan district holds ancient treasures worth more than a condominium located in the same neighborhood. The value of his merchandise represents just a fraction of an industry that the island’s jade association says brought in nearly US$16 million annually in recorded pre-pandemic antique jade sales.
Photo: AFP
But dealers warn the sector is flagging post-COVID. With the global economy in tatters, buyers are more cautious about taking a chance on expensive items, especially with the market awash with counterfeits. Taipei’s worsening ties with Beijing have also meant restrictions are still in place for visitors from China, effectively cutting out the industry’s biggest buyers. Relations have plummeted since Taiwanese twice elected President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文), who refuses to accept Beijing’s claim that the self-ruled island belongs to China, was elected in 2016.
“About seven to 12 years ago, it was very good times for people in Taiwan who are in the antiques or jade trade,” said Liu San-bian, who runs a store in Metropolitan Jewelry and Antiques Emporium. “It declined when cross-strait politics slowly affected travel between both sides,” he said, summing up the dilemma in four Chinese characters meaning: “Hard to buy, hard to sell.”
“Chinese people stopped coming in and rich people in Taiwan are not buying. There is no supply in the market... and collectors here are not willing to release their items for sale.”
Photo: AFP
‘INGRAINED IN OUR DNA’
Taiwan was the go-to place for hunters of Chinese relics long before it became a powerhouse for hi-tech semiconductors. Collectors said most were carried out of China during the Cultural Revolution, ending up on the island and nearby Hong Kong.
The Chinese government generally considers the trade of antiques from historical eras to be illegal if they were not passed down through inheritance or bought from authorized venues, such as cultural relic stores.
Photo: AFP
But there is a grey area in Taiwan, where collectors say they have obtained the items through legitimate means, especially if the items were personal belongings.
“To the Chinese, it is ingrained in our DNA,” said Chang Ju-ben, chairman of Taiwan’s Association of Jade Collectors.
“Collectors in Taiwan began collecting when they realized that these were valuable national treasures... Taiwan has a reputation in the Greater Chinese community, that you can come here to see, touch and buy good jades here.”
The antique jade market took off around 2011, when Beijing-friendly Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) was president, bringing in “an endless stream of buyers from China and other countries,” Chang said. Now Taiwan’s market is about a quarter of its former annual value — roughly US$9.4 million to US$15.7 million in the boom years — and it is easy to be steered towards inauthentic “artefacts.”
“It relies on word of mouth,” Chang said. “You have to walk the right path and find the right person.”
Most reputable collectors are also “protective” about their stock, refusing to show their best items to a novice who won’t appreciate it or to a buyer simply looking to resell for profit.
‘BUILD A REPUTATION’
A two-hour flight to Hong Kong — a hub for Chinese antiques sold in both sprawling markets and upscale auction houses — tells a different story.
Pola Antebi, deputy chairman at Christie’s auction house in Hong Kong, said she is seeing a trend in which antique collectors are releasing long-cherished collections held for up to five decades.
“We’ve sold several substantial collections from Taiwan in Hong Kong in recent years, including the notable Chang Wei-hwa collection of early jades,” Antebi said.
That portfolio of jades from the Qin and Han dynasties fetched US$9.3 million in November, while three previous auctions of Chang Wei-hwa’s collection brought in US$24.7 million from 2019 to 2021. Taiwan’s jade “players” remain confident the trade “will survive no matter what,” said the trader Lee.
His unique shop, which houses aquariums of iridescent corals, gets visitors via word of mouth. One trip can turn into several before any transaction is made — if at all.
“It takes very long to build a reputation, but it is very easy to ruin it. If one item you sell turns out to be fake... that’s all it takes to ruin you,” he said.
June 23 to June 29 After capturing the walled city of Hsinchu on June 22, 1895, the Japanese hoped to quickly push south and seize control of Taiwan’s entire west coast — but their advance was stalled for more than a month. Not only did local Hakka fighters continue to cause them headaches, resistance forces even attempted to retake the city three times. “We had planned to occupy Anping (Tainan) and Takao (Kaohsiung) as soon as possible, but ever since we took Hsinchu, nearby bandits proclaiming to be ‘righteous people’ (義民) have been destroying train tracks and electrical cables, and gathering in villages
Dr. Y. Tony Yang, Associate Dean of Health Policy and Population Science at George Washington University, argued last week in a piece for the Taipei Times about former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) leading a student delegation to the People’s Republic of China (PRC) that, “The real question is not whether Ma’s visit helps or hurts Taiwan — it is why Taiwan lacks a sophisticated, multi-track approach to one of the most complex geopolitical relationships in the world” (“Ma’s Visit, DPP’s Blind Spot,” June 18, page 8). Yang contends that the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) has a blind spot: “By treating any
This year will go down in the history books. Taiwan faces enormous turmoil and uncertainty in the coming months. Which political parties are in a good position to handle big changes? All of the main parties are beset with challenges. Taking stock, this column examined the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) (“Huang Kuo-chang’s choking the life out of the TPP,” May 28, page 12), the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) (“Challenges amid choppy waters for the DPP,” June 14, page 12) and the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) (“KMT struggles to seize opportunities as ‘interesting times’ loom,” June 20, page 11). Times like these can
Swooping low over the banks of a Nile River tributary, an aid flight run by retired American military officers released a stream of food-stuffed sacks over a town emptied by fighting in South Sudan, a country wracked by conflict. Last week’s air drop was the latest in a controversial development — private contracting firms led by former US intelligence officers and military veterans delivering aid to some of the world’s deadliest conflict zones, in operations organized with governments that are combatants in the conflicts. The moves are roiling the global aid community, which warns of a more militarized, politicized and profit-seeking trend
RSS