The Cultural Revolution } 265
assaults breaking into the compound. These were typically not howling, fren-
zied mobs, although they sometimes became that, but groups of thousands of
demonstrators transported in one lot after the other and cycled through dem-
onstration sites outside one or several adjacent foreign diplomatic missions.
Crowd leaders would use loudspeakers to whip up enthusiasm and anger.
Bloodcurdling slogans would be shouted in unison by the throng. Posters
with strident denunciations of foreign leaders and policies were plastered
over the walls of the foreign compound. Effigies of other nation’s leaders were
burnt. Entrance and egress from the embassy became very difficult, often im-
possible. People or vehicles that attempted it would be cursed, spit upon, and
hit. Physical violence against foreign personnel was not uncommon. Objects
would be thrown at the embassy building, and occasionally the embassy
compound was invaded and buildings set afire. The foreign diplomats thus
besieged of course reported their situation to their governments. Many gov-
ernments minimized the number of personnel and dependents thus exposed
to danger by postings to China.
These Red Guard assaults were partially spontaneous expressions of the
xenophobia of these mobilized youth, and partly encouraged by top Maoist
leaders as a way of purifying Chinese society of the counterrevolutionary influ-
ences emanating from foreign entities to corrupt the pure, revolutionary soci-
ety that the Cultural Revolution was supposedly creating. They were also ways
to punish foreign governments for perceived offenses against China. Chinese
importing and distributing Mao badges, little red books, or other propaganda
into other countries were frequent grounds for China to take umbrage. Official
foreign missions are ordinarily protected by protocols of diplomatic immunity
designed to permit sovereign governments to interact with one another. These
traditions of diplomatic immunity are among the oldest and most basic of the
norms governing relations among of sovereign states. They were systemati-
cally violated in China for about two years, especially during 1967.
Red Guard assaults on foreign diplomatic missions in China typically took
place under the watchful eye of PLA troops. These military forces were appar-
ently under instructions not to obstruct the revolutionary actions of the Red
Guards, but also to prevent the killing of foreign personnel. During 1967, Red
Guards frequently beat and otherwise physically abused foreign diplomatic
personnel—another egregious violation of the protocols of diplomatic immu-
nity. But when Red Guard actions sometimes threatened foreign lives, the
PLA would intervene. On occasion—such as the burning of the British mis-
sion in Beijing in August 1967—there was apparently a geographic zone des-
ignated for “revolutionary actions.” Within the British compound, the Red
Guard was given free reign, assaulting and humiliating the head of the British
mission and other British personnel. But once British personnel escaped onto
a side street outside the compound, PLA soldiers quickly took them under
their protection and escorted them in a PLA truck to safety.^7