The Cultural Revolution } 267
invaded by Red Guards.^9 Representatives of virtually every category of
country were attacked: Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, Mongolia, and Czechoslovakia
among the socialist countries; Britain, Italy, and France among the Western
countries; and Indonesia, Nepal, Tunisia, Ceylon (later renamed Sri Lanka),
India, Kenya, and Burma among the non-aligned countries. Parts of the
Soviet, Indonesian, and British diplomatic buildings were set ablaze. PLA sol-
diers often stood aside, ready to intervene if foreign lives were threatened.
Extreme violence just short of lethality was, however, permitted. When the
car of a commercial counselor at the French embassy slightly bumped a Red
Guard loudspeaker truck, for instance, the French diplomat and his wife
were dragged out of the car, surrounded by a crowded tight circle of angry
Red Guards, hit, yelled and cursed at, and spit upon. When it got dark, the
“struggle” continued, with a spotlight being directed at the French couple.
When the French ambassador protested the incident the next day at China’s
MFA, the Chinese brought into the room two elderly Chinese men, limp-
ing and supported by nurses, who charged that they had been assaulted the
previous day by the French commercial counselor.^10 This blatant cynicism
shocked diplomats.
China’s relations with Indonesia, already tense because of events sur-
rounding the October 1965 coup, collapsed under the impact of the Cultural
Revolution. Early in 1966, Renmin ribao carried an article comparing
Indonesia’s anti-Chinese policies to those of Hitler. Shortly afterwards,
Indonesian military forces surrounded the Chinese embassy in Jakarta,
whereupon PRC diplomats exited the embassy to protest the military
presence—and demonstrate their own brave militancy. A fight occurred
between the Chinese diplomats and Indonesian soldiers. Two Chinese dip-
lomats were subsequently declared personae non gratae and expelled from
Indonesia. One of these was the chargé d’affaires at the Chinese embassy, Yao
Dengshan, who would later play a prominent role in the Red Guard seizure
of the foreign ministry. Yao returned to Beijing and a hero’s welcome as a
“red diplomatic fighter.” Emerging from his airplane carrying over his head
a poster of Mao garlanded with red flowers, Yao was met by Zhou Enlai and
Jiang Qing, Mao’s wife and key lieutenant. Yao was then taken to a meeting
with Mao Zedong, and was honored by a photograph of him together with
Mao and Jiang. The next day, the photo of Yao together with Mao and Jiang
Qing appeared on the front page of newspapers across the country.^11 The mes-
sage was clear: Yao’s method of diplomatic struggle had Mao’s endorsement.
Beijing added fuel to the fire in January 1967 when the PRC embassy in
Djakarta received from an Indonesian group an invitation addressed to the
“Republic of China” rather than the “People’s Republic of China.” The PRC
embassy interpreted this trivial diplomatic blunder as an Indonesian plot to
play the “two Chinas game” and delivered a strong protest. Demonstrations
of an estimated half million people besieged the Indonesian embassy in