Opening the Door

As Chiang Kai-shek left the war-torn mainland of China in 1949, two LSTs and a freighter bore an incredible booty of beauty--377,375 art works--safely to Formosa. Since then, these delicate scrolls, jades, porcelains and lacquerware have been mostly hidden in a bombproof hideaway in the hills, some 85 miles from the capital city, Taipei.

These art works are the cream of Chinese antiquity. The Reds, of course, screamed "Criminal!" But for 16 years the only crime has been their relative invisibility to the public. Last week, on the centennial of the birth of Sun Yatsen, China's first President, a new, million-dollar National Palace Museum (financed 80% by the U.S.) was dedicated in the lush green hills on a 60-acre site less than two miles from Chiang Kai-shek's winter residence.

Inside the palacelike air-conditioned museum, the world's largest devoted solely to Chinese art, all of the refugee art works will find an appropriate home. Rarely has such art been visible to anyone other than China's former imperial ruling class. Now, for the first time in its long and tortured history, Chinese art in all its sweep and wisdom lies behind a door open to the world.

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