In this sense, the founding of Shimao Maritime Silk Road Museum of Fujian, supported by the Palace Museum, is, in some way, exploring a collaborative model that benefits the two sides and increases the efficiency of resource allocation.

The Shimao Group, led by the billionaire Xu, has maintained a good relationship with the Palace Museum. In 2016, it donated 80 million yuan ($12.4 million) to the Palace Museum for the renovation of the Hall of Mental Cultivation, or Yangixin Dian. In the next year, Xu purchased Silk Road Landscape, the Ming Dynasty scroll painted with special blue and green mineral colors which had been kept in a private Japanese museum for more than seven decades, and then donated it to the Palace Museum.

"These efforts have created mutual trust between us," says Wang Xudong, director of the Palace Museum. "We'd like to spare no effort to support the construction of the Maritime-Silk-Road-themed museum."