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Sinkiang and Sino-Soviet Relations*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 February 2009

Allen S. Whiting
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Extract

Sinkiang occupies an important place in the vast arc of Inner Asia linking Russia and China. Over the past century, it has witnessed recurring political and economic tension between these two Powers. On one occasion, Sino-Russian co-operation suppressed anti-Chinese rebellion among its predominantly Moslem peoples. More frequently, however, Russian influence benefited from these results, to the detriment of Chinese power. In addition, Russian trade concessions during the nineteenth century, and Soviet mineral exploitation in the twentieth century, spurred economic penetration of China's largest province.

Type
On the Frontiers
Information
The China Quarterly , Volume 3 , September 1960 , pp. 32 - 41
Copyright
Copyright © The China Quarterly 1960

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References

1 Kai-shek, Chiang, China's Destiny (New York: Roy Publishers, 1947), p. 34Google Scholar; Ming-chiu, Hou, Ehr-shiu, Chen, and Chen, Lu, General Geography of China (in Chinese), 1946Google Scholar, as cited in Cressey, George B., Land of the 500 Million (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1955), p. 39.Google Scholar

2 I am indebted to Mr. Theodore Shabad for my most recent information on the maps. Those from Peking generally carry the notation, “Drawn after the Atlas of China published by the Shun Pao of Shanghai before the War of Resistance to Japanese Aggression.” See, for instance, Chun-heng, Wang, A Simple Geography of China, (Peking: 1958).Google Scholar These maps have served as the public basis for Chinese Communist claims against India and Burma.

3 See Lias, Godfrey, Kazak Exodus (London: Evans Brothers Ltd., 1956)Google Scholar, for the Kazakh view, based on interviews with refugees in Turkey. Whiting, Allen S. and Shih-ts'ai, General Sheng, Sinkiang: Pawn or Pivot? (Michigan State Un.: 1958), pp. 102–103, and 115Google Scholar, offers a different analysis based upon Chinese and Russian sources, as well as interviews with persons in Sinkiang during the incidents.

4 Ili Jih-pao, 07 3, 1958Google Scholar, quoting Wang En-Mao, first secretary of the Sinkiang Chinese Communist Party at the conclusion of the Sinkiang Uighur Autonomous Region CCP Committee's plenary conference.

5 In 1957–58, the purged officials included the chairman and deputy chairman of the Ili Kazakh Autonomous Chou, the president of the People's Court of the chou, and the vice-director of propaganda of the Ili CCP committee.

6 Dzhandil'din, N., “Some Problems of International Education,” Kommunist, no. 13, 09 1959Google Scholar; see also Central Asian Review, vol. VII, no. 4, 1959, pp. 335–340, for commentary on this article.Google Scholar

7 Sinkiang Jih-pao, 10 28, 1959Google Scholar, in Survey of the China Mainland Press (hereafter cited as SCMP), no. 2155. It is impossible to distinguish between the effects of inaccuracy in Chinese Communist census figures and the impact of migration, but it is worth noting that Shabad, Theodore, China's Changing Map (New York: Praeger, 1956)Google Scholar, notes the Ili Kazakh Autonomous Chou population as 770,000, “of whom the Kazakhs are a bare majority,” while Jen-min Jih-pao, 06 21, 1959Google Scholar, in SCMP no. 2050, gives the chou population as “over 800,000” of whom Kazakhs number only 43.4 per cent.

8 Sinkiang Jih-pao, 11 1, 1959Google Scholar, in SCMP no. 2155. No recent breakdown of the total population has been found.

9 Sinkiang Jih-pao, 08 12, 1956Google Scholar, in Union Research Service, Hong Kong, vol. V, no. 25, 12 25, 1956.Google Scholar

10 Sinkiang Jih-pao, 12 17, 1959, in SCMP no. 2182.Google Scholar

11 Lattimore, Owen and others, Pivot of Asia: Sinkiang and the Inner Asian Frontiers of China and Russia (Boston: Little Brown, 1950)Google Scholar; and Lattimore, Owen, Nationalism and Revolution in Mongolia (New York: Oxford Un. Press, 1955).Google Scholar

12 Whiting, and Sheng, , op.cit., especially pp. 30–34 and 69–75.Google Scholar

13 Sinkiang Jih-pao, 11 25 and 26, 1959Google Scholar, in SCMP no. 2167. The intensity of the conflict was reflected in charges that the chief of the police department in Kashgar “and eight of his ten subordinates” were guilty of “local nationalism,” and the more sweeping accusation that “almost every head of the local nationality groups was an individual with political ambitions.” The warning stressed the link between “individualism” and “local nationalism.” See Lü Chien-jen, “For The Further Development and Elevation of Socialist Relations Among Nationalities,” Sinkiang Hung Ch'i, no. 17, reprinted in Sinkiang Jih-pao, 08 22, 1959, in SCMP no. 2134.Google Scholar

14 Sinkiang Jih-pao, 11 25, 1959Google Scholar, in SCMP no. 2167; and Saifudin, , “Sinkiang's Great Achievements in Agriculture in Ten Years,” Chung Kuo Nung Pao (Chinese Agriculture) no. 19, 10 8, 1959Google Scholar, in Extracts from China Mainland Magazines, American Consulate General, Hong Kong, no. 193. Saifudin is Secretary of the Sinkiang Chinese Communist Party and Chairman of the Sinkiang-Uighur Autonomous Region.

15 New China News Agency via Radio Peking, January 6, 1960.

16 Saifudin, , op.cit.Google Scholar

17 According to Saifudin, , “Ten Years of Progress in the Sinkiang-Uighur Autonomous Region,” Jen-min Jih-pao, 10 25, 1959Google Scholar, in SCMP no. 2140, 8, 982 Communist Party branches in Sinkiang contain 130,000 members, of whom 47–3 per cent, are “local nationality representatives.” In addition, 10,280 Young Communist League branches with 220,000 members, contain “over 50 per cent, local nationality representatives.”