In the spring of 1953, Panufnik was sent, with the Chamber Orchestra of the Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra, on a tour of China, where he met prime-minister Zhou Enlai and, briefly, Chairman Mao. In his first days there, he heard devastating news that his adored Oonagh had been drowned while Scarlett had an epileptic attack while she was bathing her. After returning to Warsaw he was asked to write a letter that the government could send to western musicians, ostensibly from Panufnik, to sound them out as to their sympathies with the Polish "Peace Movement". Panufnik described this as effectively an order to spy for Moscow, and as the last in a "succession of final straws". Thus in 1954 Panufnik no longer felt able to reconcile his patriotic desire to remain a Polish composer in Poland with his contempt for the musical and political demands of the government. He decided to migrate to Britain to highlight the conditions in which Polish composers were being forced to work.