Taiwan | Macau, HK, mainland nationals barred from museum

Taiwan’s newly completed Aviation Education Exhibition Center will not permit entry by PRC nationals (including those from Macau and Hong Kong) due to security concerns, say center authorities, because it is located inside Taiwan’s Air Force Academy, which is part of the Gangshan Air Base.
The exhibition center features a UFO-shaped exterior that is intended to represent an advanced high-tech aircraft. It will display a total of 36 decommissioned planes from the Air Force, Navy and Army, 19 of which will be suspended from the ceiling. The center is the first museum in Taiwan to exhibit historical aircraft in such a manner.
Among those that are planned to hang from the ceiling are an AT-6 fighter trainer, an F-84G fighter, a U-3A liaison aircraft and other planes from the period between 1945 and 1967 when Republic of China forces were fighting communist forces on the mainland.
The museum will also exhibit three MiG fighters from China that were flown to Taiwan by Chinese defectors, according to the center, as well as four other planes delivered the same way. They include an IL-28 bomber, and three more MiG fighters.
The new building will also feature an exhibition paying tribute to the Republic of China’s War of Resistance against Japan between 1937 and 1945, and the subsequent development of Taiwan’s military during the Cold War.
According to Taiwan’s Central News Agency, the Air Force Academy has said that it will commission a private company to run the 2.8-hectare center before it is formally opened to the public.