The directors of China’s and Taiwan’s respective Palace Museums met on Sunday for their first official face-to-face talks since fleeing Kuomintang troops shipped part of the Chinese imperial collection to Taiwan 60 years ago.

But while cultural exchanges can often be a way of bypassing political disagreements, the meeting between Zheng Xinmiao, curator of Beijing’s Palace Museum, and Chou Kung-hsin, director of Taipei’s National Palace Museum, was handled as a matter so sensitive as if it involved two rival Chinese emperors themselves.