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Five Years of the Sinkiang-Uighur Autonomous Region, 1955–60

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 February 2009

Extract

Sinkiang, that vast, rugged land in Inner Asia, rich in undeveloped resources and peopled by farmers and nomads of many races and creeds with deeply-rooted differences in ways of life and long years of conflict over political aspirations, is today in the throes of a revolution of unprecedented magnitude and intensity aimed at the achievement of sweeping cultural, social and economic changes. This prodigious effort at transformation is the keynote of Chinese Communist rule of Sinkiang. Its groundwork was laid in the first years after the Chinese Communists took control in 1949.

Type
The Intellectuals (II)
Copyright
Copyright © The China Quarterly 1961

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References

1 The inalienability of the national autonomous areas is stipulated in article three of the 1954 constitution of the People's Republic of China and the subordination of the governments of these areas to the Communist Party of China is stressed in the statement of Wang Feng, vice-chairman of the Nationality Affairs Commission of the State Council, People's Daily (Jen-min Jih-pao hereafter abbreviated as JMJP) September 27, 1959, as translated in Current Background (hereafter abbreviated as CB) (Hong Kong: U.S. Consulate-General), No. 609.

2 For a review of the political developments in Sinkiang during the first five years under Communist domination, see the chapter “Political Dynamics” by Lo, J. P. in A Regional Handbook of Northwest China (Human Resources Area Files, Inc., University of Washington, 1956), 11:483531.Google Scholar

3 JMJP 11 6, 1957.Google Scholar On Soviet aid to Sinkiang, see New China News Agency (hereafter abbreviated as NCNA) feature article, “Extensive Soviet help to Sinkiang,” 10 28, 1957Google Scholar, translated in Survey of the China Mainland Press (hereafter abbreviated as SCMP) (Hong Kong: U.S. Consulate-General), 1642, and article by Saifuddin, , “Sinkiang's great achievement in agriculture in ten years,” Chung-kuo Nung-pao, 1959, No. 19 (10 8, 1959)Google Scholar, translated in Extracts from China Mainland Magazines) (Hong Kong: U.S. Consulate-General) (hereafter abbreviated as ECMM), 193.

4 The figures for the loans and investments are cited by Saifuddin in his article, “Celebrate the tenth national day with tremendous achievement in production increase and economy,” Min-tsu T'uan-chieh, 1959, No. 10 (10 6, 1959)Google Scholar, translated in ECMM, 196, and En-mao, Wang, “Struggle to implement the people's Marxist-Leninist line for the solution of the nationality question,”Google ScholarJMJP 06 27, 1958, in CB 512.Google Scholar

At the official rate of exchange, a yuan is equivalent to three shillings or U.S. $0·42.

5 Speech of En-mao, Wang, Slnkiang Jih-pao (hereafter abbreviated as SKIP) 06 6, 1958, in CB 512.Google Scholar

6 Saifuddin's articles “Celebrate the tenth national day” and “Sinkiang's great achievements.”

7 Summary of the work of the Sinkiang Production and Construction Corps in JMJP April 16 and July 31, 1960, and the article “Brief account of the achievements of the Sinkiang Production and Construction Corps of the army in the last ten years,” Chung-kuo Nung-k'en, 1960 No. 3 (02 5, 1960) in ECMM 204.Google Scholar

8 SKJP 09 30, 1958Google Scholar, translated in Union Research Service XIII: 17 (11 21, 1958).Google Scholar

9 These were the revised figures for 1958 as cited in the article “Sinkiang's great achievements” by Saifuddin, who revealed that the per mou (one-sixth of an acre) yield of grain was 290 pounds. Previously, the grain production for 1958 was, according to the SKJP, September 30, 1958, estimated at three and a half million tons and the per mou yield was over 365 pounds. This SKJP dispatch also revealed that the farming population of Sinkiang, in 1958, was still 4·2 million, indicating almost no substantial increase from the number of peasants in the 1949–53 period. Since the per capita production of grain increased from 500 pounds to 1,100 pounds in 1958, the 1958 total could only have been a little more than double the 1949 amount, certainly not three times. In his speech in April, 1960, when he reported that the production of grain in 1959 was three and a half million tons, Saifuddin said that it was only 2·4 times the amount of 1949 (NCNA, April 5, 1960).

The preliminary estimate given in the SKJP, September 30, 1958, stated that the grain harvest of 1958 was 70 per cent, more than the 1957 figure, but Saifuddin, in his report on the readjustment of the production figures (SKJP, September 5, 1959, in SCMP 2132), revealed that the grain production of 1958 was only 45·5 per cent, over 1957 (in his article “Sinkiang's great achievements,” he declared that it was 47·5 per cent.), and he revealed, too, that the annual rate of increase from 1952 to 1957 was 4·8 per cent. These Percentages were high compared to percentages of overall agricultural growth in Communist China where the 1958 total was 35 per cent, over 1957 and the rate of increase from 1952 to 1957 was 3·7 per cent. Cf. Noboru Tsuchii, “Analysis of economic growth in Communist China” (Chugoku no keizai kakudai ni tsuite no Kento), Ekafui Tsushin 229 (05 21, 1960), 130Google Scholar, translated in United States Joint Publication Research Service 7051 (November 15, 1960) and Li, Choh-ming, “The First Decade, Part II, Economic Development,” The China Quarterly, No. 1 (0103, 1960), 4041.Google Scholar

10 The production targets for 1959–62 are mentioned by Wang En-mao in SKJP June 28, 1958, and July 18, 1958, in CB 521.

11 The statistics on industrial expansion, particularly regarding the leap forward, are to be found in the above-mentioned articles by Saifuddin and Wang En-mao and in numerous press dispatches. See, in particular, Saifuddin's “Report on the readjustment of the principal targets set in 1959 National Plan of the Sinkiang-Uighur Autonomous Region and the unfolding of the movement for production increase and economy of the region,” in SKJP September 5, 1959, in SCMP 2132.

12 As in the case of the other production figures, there is no way of ascertaining the veracity of the claims for electric power output. Saifuddin, in his article “Sinkiang's great achievements,” mentioned 192 hydroelectric stations in 1957–58 and stated that more were under construction. But, according to an article in the Chiao-shih Pao (Peking), 03 19, 1957Google Scholar, the Urumchi hydroelectric plant had a capacity of only 2,000 kilowatts compared with the thermo-electric station at Hungyenchih, near Urumchi, which a Urumchi dispatch published in the JMJP, November 9, 1958, claimed to have a capacity of 900,000 kilowatts.

13 Saifuddin, , “Celebrate the tenth national day,”Google Scholar and Wang En-mao, in JMJP, 06 27, 1958.Google Scholar Also Min-ling, Shao, “Sinkiang today,” Peking Review 1:19 (07, 1958), 1213.Google Scholar

14 Ou-lo, Kuan, “Sinkiang's higher education is developing rapidly,”Google ScholarJMJP, 07 10, 1960Google Scholar, in United States Joint Publications Research Service, 4013 (August 26, 1960).

15 JMJP, 02 10, 1960Google Scholar, in SCMP 2198.

16 NCNA, 12 13, 1960Google Scholar, 1959 and New York Times, 01 20, 1960.Google Scholar

17 Speech of Wang En-mao, SKIP, September 11, 1958, in Union Research Service XIII: 15 (November 21, 1958). The rural population was still cited as 4·2 million, see SKJP, September 30, 1958, in Union Research Service, XIII: 17 (November 28, 1958).

18 An oft-repeated statement by Saifuddin, Wang En-mao and others. Also see Fu-jen, Hsia, “Marxism vs. nationalism in Sinkiang,” Kuang-ming Jih-pao, 04 10, 1958Google Scholar, in SCMP 1764.

19 In addition, there were, in 1959, 10,280 branches of the Young Communist League in Sinkiang with a membership of over 220,000, half of whom were natives.

20 Among the many publications on the spread of local nationalism in Sinkiang and the purge of local officials and cadres who entertained such dissident views, the more important documents are the speech by Saifuddin at the enlarged meeting of the Party committee of the Sinkiang-Uighur Autonomous Region on December 16, 1957, in JMJP, 12 26, 1957Google Scholar, speeches of Saifuddin and Wang En-mao at another enlarged meeting of the Party committee in the summer of 1958, JMJP, June 27, 1958, both in CB 512, the Decision of the Party to carry out the Rectification Campaign and the Resolution of the Sinkiang Regional Party Committee to Oppose Local Nationalism, in Kuang-ming Jih-pao, 09 11, 1958Google Scholar, in SCMP 1873, and speech of Saifuddin at the second session of the Second National People's Congress, NCNA, 04 5, 1960Google Scholar, in SCMP 2238. Also SKJP dispatches of June 9, 1958, March 10 and 11, 1959, and August 22, 1959, in SCMP 1917, 1998, and 2134, and JMJP, 02 14, 1958, in CB 500.Google Scholar