Background
Nothing is known about his background.
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Huang Hua
Edit ProfileEducation
He was educated locally.
Career
Huang apparently remained in Yenan throughout the war, but little is known of his activities aside from the fact that by 1944 he was serving as a secretary to Chu Te, commander-in-chief of the Communists’ Eighth Route Army. By now fluent in English (which he had not been during his days in Peking), he also became at about this time a liaison officer to the U.S. military mission stationed in Yenan. Toward the end of the war he spent some time in Chungking working with Chou En-lai’s liaison mission to the Nationalist government, and in November 1945 he was the Party’s representative dealing with Western correspondents (including Americans) then visiting Yenan. As a result of the mediation efforts of U.S. Special Envoy George C. Marshall, a Cease-fire Agreement was signed between the Nationalists and Communists in January 1946, and to implement the agreement the Peking Executive Headquarters was established in the same month. The Communist delegation in Peking was headed by General Yeh Chien-ying, and from the establishment of the Headquarters in January 1946 until it was disbanded 13 months later, Huang served as Yeh’s personal secretary and as head of the Communist press section. In Peking, as well as in his previous contacts with foreign journalists, Huang made a favorable impression upon the Americans with whom he worked.
In March 1949, following the Communist occupation of Tientsin two months earlier, Huang became director of the Tientsin Alien Affairs Office. He transferred to the same post in Nanking in May, and after the central government was inaugurated in October, the Nanking office became, in effect, a branch of the Foreign Ministry. The post in Nanking was of peculiar importance, for it was there, the former Nationalist capital, that a number of Western diplomats remained while they awaited the actions of their home governments, a number of which were debating whether or not to recognize the new Communist government. It was for this reason, for example, that Huang was the recipient on the last day of 1949 of the official notification from the Indian government that India had broken relations with the Nationalists. The unusual diplomatic situation that prevailed in Nanking is described at length in K. M. Panikkar’s In Two China’s. (Panikkar was India’s last ambassador to the Nationalists and the first to the Communists.) Huang’s assignment in Nanking also had an ironic twist, for the president of his alma mater, Dr. Stuart, was now ambassador to China-Nationalist China. Nonetheless, Huang paid an informal visit on Stuart and broached the subject of recognition, but the American parried this with the comment that no consideration could be given to the question until a central government existed (and Stuart himself left in August, two months before the PRC was formally established).
By early 1950 Huang was heading the Shanghai Alien Affairs Office, a post he was to hold for three years. In the meantime, in the spring of 1949, he was given positions that related to his experiences of earlier years as a student and youth leader; he was elected both to Central Committee membership in the New Democratic Youth League and to National Committee membership in the All-China Federation of Democratic Youth, retaining his seat in these organizations until mid-1953. In January 1953 Huang was transferred to Peking where he became a counsellor of the Foreign Ministry, and in the fall of that year he received his first major assignment when he was appointed as the chief Chinese delegate to the talks held at Panmunjom from late October to mid-December 1953, negotiations designed to work out the arrangements for the convocation of a political conference to settle the outstanding problems in Korea, where the war had ended shortly before. Huang’s opposite number on the American side was Arthur H. Dean. Both Dean and his chief interpreter, Robert B. Ekvall, had a high regard for Huang’s abilities and his mastery of English, but both men have also suggested that Huang’s persistent and vitriolic denunciations of the American side were at least a partial cause in breaking off the talks which, in effect, ended when Dean walked out of a session on December 14. Huang remained in Panmunjom through January 1954 and during these weeks issued a number of statements urging a continuation of the talks, emphasizing that the American side would be held responsible if it did not return to the conference table.
Politics
Huang was frequently in the news throughout the late fifties, particularly when visitors from Western Europe were in Peking. And, appropriately, he was present to greet Edgar Snow when he arrived in the capital in June 1960, Shortly thereafter Huang left for his first diplomatic post following the agreement to establish diplomatic relations with Ghana in July 1960. He arrived in Accra in late August and presented his credentials as ambassador to President Kwame Nkrumah on September 5, 1960. Under Huang’s direction, Accra became Peking’s major diplomatic base in west Africa. On three occasions he was successful in efforts to gain diplomatic recognition of the PRC by other African nations. The first of these took him to Tanganyika where he attended independence ceremonies in December 1961 and won the agreement of the Tanganyikans to establish an embassy there. Similarly, in February 1964 he reached agreement with the Congo (Brazzaville) for the establishment of diplomatic relations, and in November 1964 he performed the same task in Dahomey.
Between Huang’s arrival in Accra and early 1965, he signed at least six agreements or protocols (e.g., trade and technical cooperation agreements). He also returned to Peking on at least two occasions, the most important in August 1961 when he was present for the negotiations between Nkrumah and key Chinese leaders, which led to a treaty of friendship between the two nations. In the early sixties an unusually large number of Chinese delegations visited Ghana, a fact that brought Huang into the news on numerous occasions during these years. The most important of these visits took place in January 1964 when Chou En-lai and Foreign Minister Ch’en I spent six days in Accra. Huang remained as ambassador to Ghana until January 19, 1966, when he was appointed as ambassador to the United Arab Republic to replace Ch’en Chia-k’ang. He arrived in Cairo two months later and presented his credentials to President Nasser on March 28. He thus assumed the direction of the PRC’s most important diplomatic post in the Middle East and Africa. In addition to the above-mentioned post in the Institute of Foreign Affairs, Huang’s only other position in Peking is membership on the Council of the China-Cuba Friendship Association which he has held since it was formed in December 1962.
Personality
Huang is regarded by Western diplomats as a tough negotiator, but when the occasion is appropriate he has shown that he can be affable and an interesting conversationalist. Westerners who had an opportunity to deal with him socially in Ghana found him well-versed in a number of non-political topics;- for example, he displayed a keen interest in American toys and games.
Connections
Huang was married by at least the mid-forties to a woman described as the “daughter of an old revolutionist,” but nothing more is known about her.
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Born
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Nationality
China -
Ethnicity
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Political Party
Chinese Communist Party
Career
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1944
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1946
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1950
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1953