The highly-anticipated Terminal 5 at Xi'an Xianyang International Airport, which opened on Thursday, boasts the world's first on-site museum within an airport, showcasing the historical features of the Silk Road and Xi'an, also known as Chang'an in ancient times.
Located within the Terminal 5, the museum covers an area of 6,400 square meters and features an architectural style of the Tang Dynasty (618-907).
The main exhibition hall of the basic exhibition is called the Square Pavilion, covering an area of 400 square meters. It will primarily showcase artifacts discovered during the airport's construction, supplemented by archaeological finds from the Hongduyuan area.
"The Square Pavilion is the name of a diplomatic office during the Sui and Tang dynasties (581-907). Adopting the name not only continues our connection to the ancient history, but also represents our theme of welcoming guests from near and far," said Chen Yao, head of the preparatory team of the museum at the Terminal 5.
In addition, the Hall of Treasures, an 88-square-meter exhibition hall, will display significant cultural relics from Shaanxi.
The Hall of Treasures adopts a rotating exhibition approach by selecting a representative Shaanxi's cultural relic for a special exhibition each period. The inaugural exhibition features the first-class national relic Qin Gong Bo, which has been transported to the Terminal 5 on Wednesday.
Qin Gong Bo is a type of bronze percussion instrument dating back to China's Spring and Autumn Period (770BC-476BC). "We rotate the exhibit roughly every six months. We will select some of the better and more outstanding cultural relics from within Shaanxi Province. Qin Gong Bo is both a ceremonial vessel and a musical instrument," Chen said.
The museum is expected to open to the public on Feb 26, allowing visitors to enter for tours by making online reservations.
New terminal in Xi'an airport houses museum, showcasing local culture
The ongoing probe revolving around the late U.S. financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein has become a powerful symbol of systemic dysfunction in Western political and judicial systems and has significantly eroded public trust, according to analysts.
In the latest episode of the China Global Television Network (CGTN) opinion show 'The Point with Liu Xin' which aired Wednesday, experts debated the ongoing controversies surrounding the latest release of documents in the so-called Epstein files.
The newly-released files totaling some three million pages have sparked serious scrutiny across the Atlantic, prompting the resignation of several political figures over their ties to Epstein, who died under mysterious circumstances in a maximum-security facility in 2019.
Han Hua, the co-founder and secretary general of the Beijing Club for International Dialogue, a Chinese think tank, noted how Epstein, in spite of his conviction, had seemingly built up an expansive network of the rich and powerful, and said the sense of "elite impunity" and the seeming disregard for morality among many of those involved has dealt a huge blow to Western democracy, which is supposedly built upon the basis of the rule of law.
"Right after 2008, Epstein certainly has built an even stronger and much larger Western elite circle including politicians, including academia, including the political and the religious figures like the Dalai Lama. So this actually indicates the 'bankruptcy' of the Western democracy from the moral high ground, from the rule of law. It is systematic damage to the whole system and also to the judicial and legal system. And they are building a circle that can protect Epstein and the elites in this circle from getting [allegations], from getting legally punished, so that the cases [could become] even larger. And there are so many victims, there is no perspective with regard to the victims to be protected," she said.
Josef Mahoney, a professor of politics and international relations at East China Normal University, said the ongoing Epstein saga has deeply flamed public distrust, exposing uncomfortable truths about how power operates behind closed doors.
"We've also seen, as has been raised, the question about whether or not the system can be trusted. There's intense distrust now in the system. But at the same time, I think the other point to be raised about moral authority is that what you see are leaders, figures from different fields, from across the political spectrum, essentially working together in a way, so they represent and they stoke divisions in society that exploit and suppress the people. But at the same time we see them, the left wing, the right wing, the center, all sort of having these extreme parties or relationships with each other, which really begs the question of whether or not there's a true democracy to begin with," he said.
Epstein case sows deeper distrust in Western politics, judicial systems: analysts
