Unfinished business

Imagine if at the end of the Civil War Jefferson Davis, instead of honoring Robert E. Lee's surrender at Appomattox, had slipped away with some of his Confederates to--well, let's say Hawaii.

Davis takes over Hawaii, killing off a bunchof Hawaiians in the process, and sets himself and his ilk up as an absolute dictatorship. Oh, and he also took with him all the treasure and artwork he could get his hands on--the original copies of the Declaration of Indepedence, the Constitution, Gilbert Stuart's portraits of George Washington, Paul Revere's silver... and the contents of Fort Knox.

Pretend, if you can, that the nascent reunited America doesn't go after Davis. And that he then contacts the Russians, who set up some military bases on Hawaii and put his 'Republic of America' under their protection.

What you'd have is how the Chinese see Taiwan.

And it's what lurks beneath the surface of the Times' piece on the reopening of Taiwan's National Palace Museum, Rare Glimpses of China’s Long-Hidden Treasures. Keith Bradsher, who doesn't really 'get' China despite being the Times' Hong Kong bureau, writes:

After four years of renovations that closed two-thirds of the building, the museum housing the world’s most famous collection of Chinese art is reopening this winter and holding a three-month exhibition of its rarest works.

The National Palace Museum, home to the best of the 1,000-year-old art collection of China’s emperors, is often compared to leading Western institutions like the Louvre, the Prado and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. But while this museum’s holdings are magnificent, the institution has been known for being a highly politicized place where priceless porcelain sat in poorly lit display cases and where invaluable paintings were kept in a damp manmade cave for fear of Communist attack from mainland China.

That has now changed. Heroic statues of Chiang Kai-shek, Taiwan’s former leader, and of Sun Yat-sen, the founder of modern China, have been banished. New lighting, air-conditioning, climate-controlled storage vaults and other features rival the newest museums in the West. Even the wall labels attached to the artwork are now written in clear and specific Chinese, English and Japanese.

And after many years of hiding its most valuable and most fragile artworks — those from the Northern and Southern Sung dynasties that ruled China from 960 to 1279 — the museum has brought them out for a “Grand View” exhibition that opened on Christmas. Four of the best known Northern Sung dynasty paintings — one of them on loan from the Metropolitan Museum in New York — are being shown together for the first time, along with other rare paintings, scrolls and some of the world’s earliest printed books.

The museum did seem to me to be less a showcase and more a holding pen; not surprising since the Nationalists threw it up, as they did everything else in Taiwan, with the idea that it was all temporary anyway, until they returned in triumph to Beijing.

Bradsher misses his chance to tease out the museum as metaphor for Taiwan (Chinese/English/Japanese, hello!)--a country of gleaming new construction trying to put its history in the best light, thinking that way it can join the ranks of the develped world as a 'normal' country.

It ain't gonna happen; Taiwan, I think, will soon exist only as a historical artifact. It's inevitable--the billion and a half people in the world's most powerful country after the U.S. are all dedicated to 'reuniting' Taiwan with the mainland. The Taiwanese are split, and as China's power, economy and prestige grow, the faction that favors rejoining big brother is only going to grow.

And Taiwan has no Castro, no overriding near-mythic figure who can guide his people and outmanuever the 800-lb gorilla perpetually growling just offshore. If anything, the clamminess that is Taiwanese politics guarantees anti-Castros, selfish figures willing to trade long-term national well-being for short-term political gains.

Besides which, China's leaders are the heirs of a civilization that's been around for more than 4,000 years; regaining control of a province that's gone wayward for a few decades is no big thing.

Whether parochial Americans like it or not--at some point, you'd think they'd stop seeing the Chinese as locusts.

The “Grand View” this winter may also represent the last chance for visitors from the United States and elsewhere to see the best of China’s art without having to push through throngs of mainland Chinese tourists. Taiwan is negotiating with Beijing officials to allow mainland tourists to start visiting here this spring.

Yo, Bradsher, at which point do you plan to stop describing Chinese people using variants of 'hordes'?

Besides which, it is their artwork we're talking about--not only should Americans wait in line to see it, but soon I don't think the Chinese are gonna let us push past them for anything.

Photo of a jadeite cabbage from the Ch’ing dynasty by Chao-Yang Chan for the Times. (Shows you how important food is to the Chinese).