BRITISH LEGATION AT PEKING
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1950 the British government recognized the Chinese Peoples' Republic, and as a result the British representative in Peking was recognized and the remainder of the diplomatic staff came to Peking from the former capital of Nanking. In 1954 the two governments agreed to exchange Chargés d'Affaires. Meanwhile a few changes had taken place which affected the Legation. For instance, in 1945 it was decided not to repaint the words LEST WE FORGET on the outside wall. In 1950 the part of the Legation compound which formerly housed the barracks was requisitioned by the government of the Chinese Peoples' Republic.
This was the position when I went to Peking as a tourist in July 1958 and enjoyed the hospitality of friends in the old Legation. It was my first and only visit to Peking and I was impressed by the spaciousness and picturesqueness of the old Legation. The British Embassies at Tokyo and at Bangkok, although impressive in their own ways, could not compare with the old Legation at Peking. Here the grounds were more extensive, and the Chinese buildings and pavilions well preserved and brilliantly painted, so that it was an attractive place in which to stay. Only the water-tower and the dingy brick power-plant spoilt the pleasant effect of trees and lawns and flowering shrubs. The large extent of the grounds deadened the noise of the city outside as well as attracting various wild birds — magpies, hoopoes, woodpeckers, and orioles, crows, cuckoos.
While I was enjoying my stay in the Legation and sightseeing every day in the city, the news suddenly broke that American troops had landed in Lebanon and British troops in Jordan. Two days later demonstrators began to assemble outside the gate of the Legation shouting slogans and pasting handwritten posters on the 400-yard stretch of the high walls facing the old Imperial Canal. I had been warned that this demonstration was likely to start in the afternoon but I was so engrossed in sightseeing at the Summer Palace during the morning that I failed to start on the return journey to the Legation early enough. In fact, I travelled back to Peking in a bus with a number of children carrying home-made pennants bearing Chinese characters which meant 'English wolves get out', so that I knew that the demonstration was about to begin. When the bus arrived at the