“Century-old Truth: CCP Retaliates, Red Guards Set Fire to ‘British Embassy’”

Hello audience! Welcome to watch “The Truth of a Century”.

In 1967, the Communist Party of China incited unrest in Hong Kong in an attempt to use the blood of leftist Hong Kongers to force the British to bow down. However, the British didn’t buy into their tactics. The “Six-Day Riot” in Hong Kong didn’t achieve its intended outcome, and many leftists were arrested.

Frustrated and embarrassed, the Communist Party of China took out their anger on British diplomats in China, staging a diplomatic farce by setting fire to the British mission office through the actions of the Red Guards.

A British diplomat who personally experienced the event described the social atmosphere in China at that time as a situation where “family loyalty was subverted, and people were denouncing each other,” stating that “only those who experienced it firsthand could understand the inhumane level of human treatment in that situation.”

Today, let’s review this shocking international diplomatic incident.

The British government recognized the Communist regime as early as January 1950, but it wasn’t until 1954 that the two countries agreed to establish temporary diplomatic relations at the chargé d’affaires level.

Therefore, at that time, the British diplomatic institution in Beijing was called the British Charge d’Affaires in China.

In 1967, Mao Zedong wanted to assert China’s dominance over British people and instill fear that in Hong Kong, the Communist Party was in charge. This led to inciting unrest among leftist Hong Kongers, prompting the Hong Kong authorities to suppress the protests, resulting in casualties. Each time someone was killed by the police, the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs immediately demanded apologies and compensations from the British.

However, instead of complying, the British authorities in Hong Kong ordered the closure of several leftist newspapers and arrested 19 journalists, as well as 34 staff members of Xinhua Hong Kong Bureau, Wen Wei Po, and Ta Kung Pao.

The head and deputy head of the Xinhua Hong Kong Bureau were actually secretaries of the underground Communist Party organization in Hong Kong. The Xinhua Hong Kong Bureau was actually the Guangdong Provincial Committee’s Hong Kong and Macau Urban Work Committee, abbreviated as Hong Kong and Macau Work Committee.

With their people arrested, the Communist Party of China protested on one hand and organized individuals to place “fake bombs” in various locations around Hong Kong. In response, the Hong Kong authorities continued to make arrests.

This infuriated the Communist Party of China. On August 20, the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued an ultimatum to the British Charge d’Affaires in China, demanding the release of journalists and newspaper staff within 48 hours, or face the consequences.

However, the British ignored the ultimatum. As the deadline approached, the Communist Party couldn’t back down and resorted to retaliation in Beijing.

In 1995, John Weston, who served as a staff member at the British Charge d’Affaires and later as the British Permanent Representative to the United Nations from 1995 to 1998, recalled the tense hours before and after the expiry of the ultimatum.

He mentioned that there were 23 people, including 18 men and five women, inside the British mission office building. Most of the individuals gathering outside were students, mainly Red Guards. The Chinese military personnel guarding the office prevented the staff from leaving, citing concerns for their safety, essentially trapping them inside the building.

The crowd outside continued to swell, reaching approximately 10,000 by nightfall.

When the ultimatum deadline arrived at 10 pm, the staff inside the office realized the situation was dire as their phones were no longer functioning.

Following the incident, upon inspection, they discovered that the phone lines had been cut.

The communication between the mission office and the outside world was severed. Subsequently, personnel from the Polish Embassy informed the British diplomats that they witnessed people carrying gasoline cans towards the British mission office building but were unable to communicate the warning as the phones were cut off.

Upon the expiration of the ultimatum, individuals outside the British mission office lit flares, signaling to the crowd outside that the attack had commenced.

The crowd rushed in like a tidal wave, breaching the office’s gates and walls. The staff quickly retreated to an underground bunker, locking themselves in, switching off all lights, and waiting for the situation to subside.

From their shelter, they could hear the commotion outside, with every window being shattered as people forced their way inside, breaking down every door.

Subsequently, the staff inside the office realized that someone had started a fire. Sensing the danger, with the building’s temperature rising and smoke filling the air, after being attacked for 30 to 40 minutes, they decided to evacuate.

By that time, the situation had become extremely dire, as the crowd outside had reached the security room where the British diplomats were hiding, and knew the location of the underground shelter inside the mission office used by the British diplomats.

Weston remembered, “The whole place was illuminated like a scene from ‘Apocalypse Now.’ The fire was raging fiercely inside the building, surrounded by a group of shouting Chinese men and women.”

He described the chaotic scene where they, along with other British diplomats and their family members, were pushed and jostled by the crowd, unable to control their movements.

Weston held onto his wife with one hand and tried to protect another secretary with the other. They immediately faced a barrage of punches and kicks.

When Weston’s wife, whose hair was in a ponytail, was violently grabbed by her ponytail, Weston had to bite the perpetrator to make him let go.

The female secretaries from the mission office also endured insults and assaults.

Thirty years after the incident, an article in The Independent described how the British diplomats were assaulted and sexually harassed. It detailed how the highest-ranking official at the British mission office, Donald Hopson, was severely beaten, leaning with blood running down his face.

The four female secretaries and Weston’s wife had almost all their clothes torn off and were subjected to sexual harassment, while male embassy staff members were harassed by female Red Guards.

The staff of the mission office was dispersed by the crowd, and each person was physically assaulted.

At one point, Weston saw a Chinese military personnel and desperately reached out to him, holding his arm and telling him in Chinese, “You are a soldier, we are diplomats, you must help us.”

The Chinese soldier began aiding in gathering the mission office staff together, escorting them to a truck, where they laid in the back, surrounded by soldiers. Appearing like a truck full of only soldiers.

In this manner, the British diplomats and their families departed from the roaring crowd. Behind them, the grand flames of the British mission office continued to burn.

Years later, Weston reminisced about the experience, stating that the appearance of the Chinese soldier wasn’t coincidental, implying that it was a premeditated action. Due to instructions preventing the Chinese soldiers from entering the office but allowing the Red Guards to enter in large numbers, it suggested that the soldiers intervened based on orders not to let the situation escalate to casualties.

In March 2024, the UK Foreign Office published a special report on the burning of the mission office, gathering correspondence at that time showing that the British diplomats believed the siege and burning were deliberate actions.

Percy Cradock, who served as the British Charge d’Affaires in China from 1968 to 1969, expressed in a letter that it was not an irrational outbreak of violence but a well-planned and controlled action.

Ray Whitney, a secretary at the British mission office from 1966 to 1968, believed the attack had received approval from the higher authorities.

Another individual involved, Anthony Blishen, who was a secretary and consul at the mission office, also considered the burning of the office to be deliberate.

The events of the attack were not isolated to the British mission office, as a series of other foreign embassies and institutions in China were targeted by the Red Guards during the Cultural Revolution.

According to the book “Mao Zedong: The Unknown Story” by Jung Chang and Jon Halliday, embassies of the Soviet Union, Mongolia, Indonesia, India, and Burma were attacked, all with the official approval from the Chinese government, directed by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

While there were 48 countries with established or semi-established diplomatic relations with China at the time, by the end of September 1967, nearly 30 of them were caught in diplomatic disputes, resulting in downgrading diplomatic relations and closing embassies.

That concludes today’s program. Thank you for tuning in, and we’ll see you next time.