  Recent data for highly excited mesons suggest that not only the chiral
$SU(2)_L\times SU(2)_R$ symmetry of QCD is restored high in the spectrum but
also the $ U(1)_A$ symmetry. This means that it is not a confining interaction
in QCD which triggers the spontaneous breaking of chiral symmetry. The
restoration of the $U(2)_L\times U(2)_R$ symmetry of the QCD Lagrangian implies
the appearance of multiplets of this group high in the hadron spectra. Such
type of multiplets is naturally explained within the string picture of
confinement. It also supports the scenario that the $U(1)_A$ breaking is
related to instantons and not to the gluonic interaction responsible for
confinement.
