Local media in China also commented on the London museum’s presence on Tmall, with one writing, “For both domestic museums and overseas museums, it is a must to develop in the cultural and creative industries. The Palace Museum now has its strong competitor in Taobao.”

The British Museum in London’s Bloomsbury district attracts millions of visitors every year, and it is hugely popular with Chinese tourists.

It has a worldwide reputation for staging spectacular exhibitions, and in 2007 it played host to what was at the time the largest ever overseas loan of figures from the Museum of the Terracotta Army and the Cultural Relics Bureau of Shaanxi Province.