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<h3 style="margin-top:0;"><a style="font-weight: 500; font-size: 21px;line-height: 30px; margin-top:25px; margin-bottom: 10px;" href="http://u.osu.edu/mclc/2017/01/11/hk-divided-over-forbidden-city-museum-plan/" target="_blank">HK divided over Forbidden City museum plan</a></h3>
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<p>Source: BBC News (1/10/17)<br />
<a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-china-blog-38567586">Hong Kong divided over Forbidden City museum plan</a><br />
By Juliana Liu, Hong Kong correspondent, BBC News</p>
<p>The Forbidden City in Beijing has housed generations of Chinese emperors for hundreds of years. A museum since 1925, it now welcomes more than 14 million visitors a year, drawn to its ornate gates, inner palaces and nearly two million pieces of imperial art and antiques.</p>
<p>Those cultural treasures, however, have become the focus of a dispute in Hong Kong.</p>
<p>A recently unveiled proposal to build a local branch of the museum has met much resistance, amid growing political tension with the mainland Chinese government.</p>
<p>The Forbidden City, known formally as the Palace Museum, would loan many of its items on a long-term basis to the Hong Kong museum.</p>
<p>"If you do it in a proper way, well, Hong Kong people appreciate museums. We appreciate art," said Lee Cheuk-yan, a former member of the territory's Legislative Council who led dozens of people in a protest against the proposed project this week.</p>
<p>"But this time, there was no consultation at all. It seems to be a dictation from China, ordering Hong Kong that we should accept this museum without any proper consultation."</p>
<p>By contrast, the West Kowloon Cultural District, an arts hub where the museum will be based, went through several rounds of public consultations starting in 2007.</p>
<p>The Hong Kong Palace Museum, scheduled to open in 2022, was announced at a ceremony in Beijing in late December by Carrie Lam, Hong Kong's second-highest official, who is widely believed to harbour higher political ambitions.</p>
<p>Her detractors accuse her of trying to curry favour with the Chinese government, whose loyalists are likely to decide the outcome of the upcoming chief executive election.</p>
<p class="story-body__crosshead"><strong>A divided collection</strong></p>
<p>The National Palace Museum was set up in 1925 in Beijing but in the late 1940s, as the Nationalist government led by Chiang Kai-shek was losing the civil war to Mao Zedong's Communists, the museum was split.</p>
<p>The Nationalist government sent some of its most valuable imperial treasures to Taiwan.</p>
<p>Today, there is the Palace Museum in Beijing, and the rival National Palace Museum in Taipei.</p>
<p>"It's her own baby, a pet project," said Claudia Mo, a pro-democracy lawmaker who grilled Ms Lam last week as a session in the legislature.</p>
<p>"She's trying to hard to get Hong Kong's top job by pleasing Beijing."</p>
<p>Ms Lam, the chief secretary, is expected to declare her intention to run for the chief executive position as early as this week.</p>
<p>The Hong Kong Jockey Club, a non-profit that runs the city's horse racing and betting business, would fund the project with a HK$452m ($58.3m; £48m) donation.</p>
<p>Critics have accused Ms Lam of coaxing the Jockey Club to fund the museum, bypassing a government approval process involving politicians. The Jockey Club has denied any conflict of interest.</p>
<p>"The Club, through its Charities Trust, agreed to fund the capital cost of the proposed project because it is a unique and meaningful arts and culture project that will benefit the people of Hong Kong," it said in a statement.</p>
<p>Hong Kong's pro-Beijing media has been firing back against the criticism.</p>
<p>Ta Kung Pao newspaper has quoted Chan Yung, a local delegate to China's National People's Congress, as saying the museum would bring financial and cultural benefits to Hong Kong.</p>
<p>"The opposition forces are trying to win political capital," he told the newspaper. "They don't fear standing against human civilisation in saying no to this project."</p>
<p>After weeks of controversy, including Carrie Lam's grilling last week, the museum's organisers have relented and started a six-week public consultation.</p>
<p>But the process is expected to focus on how the museum should be run and what it might display, rather than on whether it should exist at all.</p>
<p>At a press conference on Tuesday the organisers, including Carrie Lam, took questions.</p>
<p>She and Duncan Pescod, chief executive officer of the West Kowloon Cultural Authority, urged the public to share their views.</p>
<p>"We will listen to all views, and we will reflect all views fairly to the board (of West Kowloon Cultural Authority)," Mr Pescod told reporters.</p>
<p>The Hong Kong Palace Museum was introduced last year as part of celebrations commemorating the 20th anniversary of Hong Kong's handover to China this July.</p>
<p>But, in a city divided, it is generating far more headlines for its political symbolism than its artistic value.</p>
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by <a href="mailto:denton.2@osu.edu">denton.2@osu.edu</a> on January 11, 2017 </div>
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