Sometimes there is nothing for it but to send out the troops. Doubtless frustrated by the slow pace of progress toward unification with its "renegade province" of Taiwan, China last week announced plans to do just that. A small force of soldiers, it said, is being prepared to cross the Formosa Strait ahead of a three-month visit to -- or occupation of -- Taipei's renowned National Museum of History.

As everyone knows, this museum is home to the bulk of China's historical and artistic treasures, which were deposited there in 1949 by Chiang Kai-shek's fleeing Nationalist government. So, is this mission from the mainland meant as a demonstration of good will or as a highly original form of reconnaissance? There's a twist to the story that makes its import particularly hard to pin down. There are only 14 warriors and, given the fact that they are some 2,200 years old and made of terra cotta, they are understandably fragile. Theirs is a delicate assignment in more ways than one.

The soldiers are an elite contingent from the estimated 8,000-strong army protecting the vast underground tomb of China's first sovereign emperor, Shi Huangdi, near the modern city of Xian. Shi Huangdi died in 210 or 209 B.C., and his burial place lay apparently undisturbed for over two millennia, until a peasant brigade of well-diggers stumbled upon the fabulous subterranean chamber in 1974. Most of the astonishingly individualized, life-size figures of men and horses remain partly entombed, facing east in perfect battle order, but the 1,400 or so that have been dug up so far have become almost more famous than the man they guarded. The tomb compound was declared a UNESCO World Heritage site in l987 and is now one of China's biggest tourist attractions, drawing up to 50,000 visitors a day at peak periods.