China state museum opens in Hong Kong amid patriotism drive

China's famed Palace Museum began displaying artifacts in Hong Kong on Sunday amid a drive to build loyalty to Beijing in the former British colony that reverted to Chinese rule 25 years ago.

Works of calligraphy and paintings on silk dating back more than 1,000 years feature heavily in the exhibition, housed in a seven-story building in a newly developed harborside arts district.

The delicate artworks will be returned to Beijing for safekeeping after 30 days, but China's Communist Party leaders want the exhibition's cultural and political impact to linger for far longer.

Despite that background, museum director Louis Ng stated that the Hong Kong space was not simply a branch of the Beijing Palace Museum.