As of press time last night, President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) had not decided whether an exhibition of National Palace Museum pieces would be held as scheduled in Japan, although officials said earlier yesterday that the Tokyo National Museum “has shown sincerity” in wanting to resolve the naming row.
As of 10:30pm last night, the government had not responded to proposals made by the Tokyo museum yesterday morning to remove or replace all posters referring to the Taipei museum as the “Palace Museum, Taipei,” before Saturday.
The Ma administration on Friday issued an ultimatum to the Japanese organizers involved with the exhibition to remove posters referring to “Palace Museum” instead of “National Palace Museum” by 11pm last night (midnight last night in Tokyo), or Taiwan would cancel the event to safeguard “national dignity.”
Photo: Pan Shao-tang, Taipei Times
Following the ultimatum, the nation’s Representative to Japan Shen Ssu-tsun (沈斯淳) held intensive negotiations with the Tokyo National Museum overnight, Chen Tyau-her (陳調和), deputy chief of the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office in Japan, told the Taipei Times by telephone yesterday.
At the same time, the Tokyo National Museum began to remove posters that did not include the word “national” in the Taiwanese museum’s name and address the omission of the word, Chen said.
Earlier yesterday morning, the Tokyo museum promised the office that none of the posters would be on display by Saturday next week, Chen said.
Photo: EPA
The reason for the later completion date than the government’s deadline was that the Tokyo National Museum can only work on the posters put up in metro and railway stations when train services are closed at night, Chen said.
“They [Tokyo National Museum] have shown sincerity” to fix the issue, he added.
The posters in question were said to be prepared by a media sponsor group for the event comprising major media outlets, including NHK, the Asahi Shimbun and other TV stations and newspapers, while the posters provided by the Tokyo museum use the Taipei museum’s full name.
Chen said the Tokyo National Museum yesterday backed down from insisting that use of the term “Palace Museum, Taipei” by the media group was beyond its control.
The position previously held by the Tokyo museum that it has no right to interfere with material prepared by media outlets because of freedom of speech was “untenable,” Chen said.
“The posters have nothing to do with freedom of speech or editorial independence,” he added.
Ma deliberated the proposals made by the Tokyo National Museum throughout yesterday, after Shen relayed information to Taipei earlier in the day, a diplomatic source said last night.
If the issue is resolved, a delegation led by first lady Chow Mei-ching (周美青) is to depart for Japan at 9am today to attend the opening ceremony of the exhibition titled “Treasured Masterpieces from the National Palace Museum, Taipei.”
Although the Tokyo museum has shown sincerity, members of the delegation were all told to stand by before a final decision is made by the Presidential Office, Association of East Asian Relations Chairman Lee Chia-chin (李嘉進) said.
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