Ward incident

The Ward incident was a diplomatic incident which occurred in China in 1948-1949, during the final years of the Chinese Civil War. The American Consul Angus Ward and his staff were held under house arrest by Mao Zedong’s People's Liberation Army (PLA) for almost a year, creating a diplomatic rift with the United States.

As the PLA swept through China during the Civil War against the Nationalists in 1948 and 1949, they began to harass Westerners in general and Americans in particular. As one of the major trade centers in China, Mukden (Shenyang) was taken by the Communist troops in October 1948. In November, the Communists demanded that American Consul Angus Ward surrender the consulate’s radio transmitter. Ward refused. In response, the PLA troops surrounded the consulate, putting Ward and 21 staff members under house arrest. For months, without communication, water, and electricity, Ward and the other Americans were completely isolated under guard by the Chinese Communists.

Elden Erickson was one of the staff members confined in the consulate. A quote from his oral history describes the conditions they lived under:

"[The confinement] was an eerie sensation. It went on and on. Then they cut off our electricity which cut off our water supply. And we had no fuel. You couldn’t take a bath because there was no hot water. You just put on layers of clothing like the Chinese did. They didn’t take our clothing away. Each week we were permitted to write a list in Chinese of what we wanted and give it to a couple who would come to the gate. But we couldn’t speak to them. We kept ordering needles because our clothes were wearing out. The servants had done all the mending before. So that really became an important thing, to have a needle. Thread was another item. But it was really the cold that I remember the worst. It would get 40 below and that was really cold. Then the pump would freeze. We didn’t have any running water, of course. We would bake bread and the cockroaches would practically line the bread pans as it was rising. We would bake it with the cockroaches in it and then just slice the sides off….They didn’t get inside the bread. What did we do? We played bridge. We didn’t have any electricity and nights start very early in the wintertime. We did get candles and that was all we had. We played pinochle five days and couldn’t stand it any longer so started playing bridge. They always let us buy vodka. The vegetables–carrots and cabbage–we got most of the time… meat, from time to time, but it would be full of straw and dirt. However, we would just wash it up and boil it well. We were never hungry. And I think that is important in maintaining at least a modicum of morale. If you are cold and hungry that is a lot worse than being just cold."

The American government ordered the consulate closed and called for the withdrawal of Ward and his staff. But Ward was unable to do this because in June 1949 the Chinese charged the American consulate with serving as a headquarters for espionage. With the crisis worsening, the Truman administration called upon American allies to withhold recognition of Mao’s newly established government. In response, the PLA troops arrested Ward, accusing him and his staff members of inciting a riot outside the consulate in October 1949. In November 1949, as Angus Ward was brought to trial, the American public anger verged on explosion. President Harry S. Truman, already under severe attacks for “losing” China to the Communists, could not afford to show weakness in the face of the Chinese Communist challenge. He met with his military advisors to discuss the feasibility of a rescue operation. However, although incensed with the Communists, Washington showed great restraint because it was still looking for opportunities for reaching an accommodation with the People’s Republic of China (PRC). Secretary of State Dean Acheson conveyed the message to Beijing that the US would not recognize the new Chinese government until all the Americans at Mukden were released. On November 24, 1949, Ward and his staff were charged with the inciting-to-riot and ordered to be deported. They finally left China in December 1949.

The crisis lasted for more than a year, by which time the already fragile US relations with the Chinese Communists had been damaged virtually beyond repair. Any possibilities that might have existed for US recognition of the PRC became remote. In retrospect, the Ward Case is the beginning of the confrontation between the United States and the People’s Republic China.