Japan will host two exhibits of more than 200 artifacts from Taiwan's National Palace Museum, regarded by many as having the foremost collection of Chinese antiquities in the world.

The exhibits, which will run from June until November, will be the first of their kind in Japan since the museum settled in suburban Taipei 49 years ago.

National Palace Museum collections have only been allowed to leave the country four other times in recent memory, and then only after destination countries — the United States, France, Germany and Austria — enacted special laws to guarantee the safe return of artifacts to Taiwan.