The National Palace Museum (NPM) is known for its collection of Chinese artifacts. Most of its artifacts came from the Qing Palace, which housed precious artifacts collected by the imperial family over thousands of years. These artifacts total to nearly 700,000 pieces and include antiquities, paintings and calligraphy, historical documents and rare books, and Asian artifacts, making them one of the world's unique collections of cultural assets. Since its restoration in Waishuangxi, Taipei in 1965, the NPM has attracted millions of domestic and foreign tourists every year, and has demonstrated how culture has become the soft potential of Taiwan and the foundation of the development in economic, tourism and cultural creative industries.

Various civilizations in the East Asian cultural sphere, including the Chinese civilization, have communicated and interacted with each other in the vast Pan-Asian region since ancient times through the Silk Roads both on the land and the sea. Therefore, from a macro perspective, it is easy to discover that some artifacts initially classified as Chinese origins also bear other Asian elements while some relics believed to be originated from Northeast Asia or Southeast Asia reveal traces of Chinese connectivity.