Taipei - Taiwan's National Palace Museum, which holds the world's largest collection of Chinese artifacts, plans to hold an exhibition in Britain and Japan, the museum said Tuesday.

"We are negotiating with the British Museum for an exchange of exhibitions - we hold an exhibition of Chinese treasures at the British Museum and they display their collection of Greek sculptures at the National Palace Museum," a museum press officer told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.

"The negotiation is still going on. We don't know when the exhibitions can be held, because even after we have reached agreement, we have to wait till both museums have the space to hold the exhibitions," she said, asking not to be named.

The National Palace Museum is also seeking to hold an exhibition in Japan which has close links with Chinese culture.

"Many Japanese museums have invited us to hold an exhibition in Japan, but the obstacle is that Japan does not have the Law of Guaranteed Return, which can guarantee that after the exhibition, our exhibits will be returned to Taiwan and not seized by China," she said.

"We hope Japan can either enact the Law of the Guaranteed Return or issue a statement, with legal effect, to pledge that our exhibits will be returned to Taiwan after the exhibition," the press officer said.

Some 2.6 million Taiwanese and foreigners visit the National Palace Museum each year, and half of them are Japanese who are especially interested in Chinese calligraphy.

The Chinese Nationalist Government took the best artifacts from the Palace Museum in Beijing and a museum in Nanjing - a total of
650,000 pieces - and brought them to Taipei, when it lost the Chinese Civil War in 1949.

Since then, the artifacts have been preserved at the National Palace Museum on the outskirts of Taipei, and are put on display by rotation.

China regards Taiwan as its breakaway province and considers the artworks the heritage of China. Fearing that Beijing might impound the artifacts through its diplomatic ties with foreign countries, Taiwan has allowed the National Palace Museum to send its treasures abroad only a few times.

In February 2008, the National Palace Museum held an exhibition in Austria following two years of negotiations to convince Vienna to sign the Law of Guaranteed Return.

Currently 171 countries recognize China and only 23 nations have diplomatic ties with Taiwan. (dpa)