The New York Times today has a story on a joint project between the Beijing and Taipei Palace Museums to retrace the routes by which the imperial collection of art and antiquities was moved from Beijing in advance of the Japanese Imperial Army in the 1930s. (David Barboza, “Rival Museums Retrace Route of China’s Imperial Treasures,” NYT, July 6, 2010) Their research took the team to Chongqing:
“They were stored right about here,” Hu Changjian, a local [Chongqing] museum official, said of the artifacts, an unparalleled collection of more than a million objects from the Forbidden City in Beijing, including fine paintings, calligraphy, jade and porcelain dating back centuries. He added, “We think they dug caves in the hills behind us to store some of the treasures.”
The article also looks into the significance of the imperial treasures in legitimizing 20th century Chinese governments:
David Shambaugh, who with Jeannette Shambaugh Elliott wrote “The Odyssey of China’s Imperial Art Treasures,” said Chinese leaders had long viewed them as a means of validating their power, even under Communism. During the Cultural Revolution, when Red Guards tried to destroy anything associated with tradition, Mao ordered the museum protected.*
“Every successive regime used the