IT MAY BE just another triumph of the curator's art but it also may be, in part at least, a kind of political statement. In any case, one current exhibit at Taiwan's splendid National Palace Museum is devoted to 'Active Figures in the History of Taiwan During the Chi'ing Dynasty'.
Not the most gripping topic, and the average visitor is more likely to linger before Ming blue and white than accounts of obscure provincial officials from long ago. But purposefully or not, the exhibit illustrates a growing Taiwanese fascination with the Chinese mainland and relations with its past, present and future. Though nothing dramatic will occur soon, whatever the results of crucial legislative elections on December 1, some important shifts of attitude are under way. And these raise the possibility of a changed future for both the mainland and Taiwan.
The current relationship is one of careful ambiguity. Beijing considers Taiwan a wayward province whose only duty is to rejoin the family. Taiwan clings to its heritage as the Republic of China and dithers about whether to rename itself more modestly but also more provocatively as the Republic of Taiwan. Do so and there will be war, the Communists promise, and Taiwanese President Chen Shiu-bian backs away, even though his political party was founded on precisely that pledge.
This leaves Taiwan less than a state but more than a province, not quite accepted into the community of nations yet recognising fundamental allegiance to no one. And despite frequent huffing and puffing, neither side is ready to force a definitive change; the price could be too high.
Yet things are hardly static. Old anxieties linger, but from Taiwan, mainland China no longer seems such a strange and fearsome place. Several hundred thousand Taiwanese live or work on the mainland, at least part time, and many others visit. Taiwanese have invested perhaps US$60 billion there, and half or more of many 'Taiwanese' products actually come from mainland factories.
Whole Chinese towns, such as Dongguan in Guangdong, and the Shanghai suburb of Kunshan, are becoming Taiwanese in nature. Many consider bustling Shanghai, in particular, a cool place to work - even if they often see mainlanders as unpleasant money-grubbers - and some older Taiwanese say they would like to retire there.