Joining the Socialist Camp } 41
The principle governing establishment of diplomatic relations was “clean
house before inviting guests” (qian dazao fangzhen, hou qing ke). In essence
this referred to pushing Western, and especially American, diplomatic pres-
ence out of China, and uprooting the vast Western cultural presence in
China, before re-establishing diplomatic relations with those Western coun-
tries. In 1949, there was a huge Western-inspired and/or Western-linked
cultural presence in China: businesses and companies, Christian churches,
civil organizations such as YMCA and YWCAs, clubs, schools, orphanages,
newspapers, political and professional associations. From the CCP’s perspec-
tive, this vast matrix of civil society was unacceptable on two grounds. First,
it was a social basis for imperialist influence within China. It was through
these organizations that “imperialism” dominated and controlled a country,
or so Marxism-Leninism taught. Second, this civil society was the core of the
“bourgeois” (that is, private, voluntaristic, and self-interest-based) society that
was to be destroyed as part of the construction of a socialist society. Under
socialism, again as understood by Stalin’s and the CCP’s Marxism-Leninism,
social organizations would function under the leadership of the party, thus
lending their weight to achievement of the “tasks” specified by the party.
Western diplomatic missions in China had extensive contacts with this
Western-influenced Chinese civil society. Allowing Western diplomatic pres-
ence to remain in China while the CCP moved to either dismantle or bring
these organizations under party control would be inconvenient for two rea-
sons. First, it would encourage resistance to China’s transition to socialism
by China’s “bourgeois elements.” Second, it would convey information about
the dictatorial repression underway in China to the outside world, where the
Western media would use it to “attack New China.” It was better if the hard,
cruel work of transition to socialism were performed without observation by
Western diplomats, journalists, and missionaries.
These principles were put into practice as PLA armies swept across China.
On November 2, 1948, PLA forces occupied Shenyang, capital of Liaoning
province. The US consul general in that city, Angus Ward, remained at his
post in that city per State Department instructions. PLA troops took up pro-
tection of the consulate grounds and initially allowed the facility to continue
normal operations. For about two weeks, businesslike cooperation occurred
between consular officials and the office of the new communist mayor, Zhu
Qiwen. Visits were exchanged, official titles were used, and agreement was
reached to issue identification cards for consulate automobiles. Then there
was an abrupt hardening of CCP policy under direction of Mao and Zhou
Enlai. The Center rebuked Zhu for treating US personnel as though they had
some sort of special status (i.e., diplomatic status, immunities, and privileges),
when in fact they were merely ordinary foreign citizens and should be treated
as such. The objective, the CCP Center explained to the Party’s Northeast
Bureau, was to drive the US mission out of China.^30