A History of China (78 page)

When the communists took power in late 1949, they had more substantial problems facing them than the capricious development of policies. They did not occupy specific regions, especially the borderlands. The regions that the Qing had added to China in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries had capitalized on the dynasty’s collapse to assert their autonomy or even independence.

Mongolia, the first of these regions to submit to the Qing, sought independence immediately after 1911. Plagued with disunity and an inability of the secular leadership and religious hierarchy to achieve peace for the country’s benefit, Mongolia spent the period from 1911 to 1921 in limbo. Individual Mongol khans, Chinese warlords, and Japanese-backed White Russians, as well as a bizarre and murderous commander of Russian extraction named Baron Ungern von Sternberg (1885–1921), fought for control. Tsarist Russia, to which the Mongols appealed for support, feared antagonizing Japan and China and did not fully support the Mongols. In 1915, it brokered a vague arrangement by which Mongolia became autonomous but remained under Chinese suzerainty. Once the Bolsheviks took power, Lenin turned out to be more supportive and helped Mongolia to become an independent country and, in 1921, the second communist state in the world. The Mongolian People’s Republic, as it came to be known after 1924, was heavily influenced by the USSR, but its legal status remained ambiguous. China claimed jurisdiction until 1945, when Stalin compelled Chiang Kai-shek to consent to a plebiscite in Mongolia. The Mongols opted for independence, but territorial disputes between Chiang and the Mongol government in Xinjiang prompted him to renounce the previous agreement. Mongolia was still not recognized by China, and Mao Zedong had also said that he looked forward to the country’s incorporation into China. In 1950, under pressure from the USSR, Mao had to acknowledge Mongolia’s sovereignty and exchanged ambassadors with the land to the north.

Mao was determined to maintain China’s control over Inner Mongolia and Xinjiang. When his troops occupied Inner Mongolia in 1947, he ended the area’s claims either to independence or as a region within the country of Mongolia (a policy that Japan had tried to implement during the Second World War). The communists would not permit such an outcome, yet they needed to appease the large Mongol population. They quickly appointed the sinicized Mongol leader Ulanhu to be the chief official in the so-called Inner Mongolian Autonomous Region. Their principal solution concerning minority areas was the development of the concept of an “autonomous region,” which they have continued to use since that time. The term implied that the area’s minority or minorities would have considerable decision-making power on the local level. Indeed, Mao and others in the communist leadership repeatedly stated that they would protect the minorities’ cultural heritages, languages, and religious expressions. However, the policies they have pursued since 1949 have often clashed with their avowed intentions. They have, on occasion, undermined and attacked the minorities’ unique cultural characteristics, which prompts speculation that they believed that the advent of communism would ultimately lead to increased assimilation and sinicization. Decades after the communists’ assumption of power, minority “problems” remain intractable in China.

In the case of Inner Mongolia, the communists encouraged or coerced Chinese to move into the region. They sought to outnumber the Mongols, and, in fact, achieved their objective. Within a decade, the Mongols became a decided minority in their so-called autonomous region. The lure for the Chinese was extraordinary economic development. They could and did grow crops, cutting into the Mongols’ pasture lands, and they found jobs in the burgeoning iron, steel, and chemical industries. The Chinese became the dominant force in the economy, but the communists adopted a flexible approach toward the Mongols by not interfering with their language, lifestyle, and culture. With this moderate approach and with a Mongol as the leader of the government, Inner Mongolia was relatively peaceful by the mid 1950s and had certainly fallen within the Chinese sphere.

Xinjiang experienced greater turbulence. After the collapse of the Qing, Yang Zengxin, a Chinese warlord, had taken command and initiated carrot-and-stick policies. Within a few years, he had crushed opposition from Chinese secret societies and, most important, from the local Muslim communities. Fewer corvée burdens and reductions in taxes had accompanied his repressive policies. The Bolshevik revolution posed problems for Yang, as central Asian Muslims and White Russians sought to use Xinjiang as a base for attacks on the USSR or at least as a sanctuary. Although he allowed a few of them to resettle in Xinjiang, his primary objective was peaceful relations with the USSR, which led to a treaty in 1924. This agreement permitted the USSR to set up five consulates in Xinjiang, and Yang was allowed a similar number in central Asia. Trade increased dramatically, surpassing Xinjiang’s commerce with China. Yang seemed to be aligning himself with central Asia and the USSR rather than with China.

Even after Yang was assassinated in 1928, Sheng Shicai (1897–1970), one of Yang’s most important successors, maintained relations with the USSR. Soviet advisers and technicians helped to develop the economy, and the USSR dispatched workers to build roads and railway lines. It also sent troops and supplies to assist Sheng to crush opponents. When the Soviet involvement in the Second World War prevented it from providing any further assistance, Sheng turned back to China and started an anticommunist campaign within his own ranks, executing Mao Zedong’s brother during this time. Chiang Kai-shek did not trust Sheng and relieved him of his position in 1944. Without a Chinese strongman dominant in Xinjiang, the Turkic majority capitalized on the power vacuum to proclaim an independent Eastern Turkistan Republic in 1945. For a time, it appeared that Xinjiang would become an independent country. Yet Chiang was able to impose a repressive Uyghur ally as the provincial leader. By 1949, the Uyghur ally had generated such hostility that he had been replaced by Burhan Shahidi (1894–1989), a communist ally. In the midst of these ­disputes, Mongolia’s ruler Kh. Choibalsan (1895–1952) tried to lay claim to territories in Xinjiang. Because Kazakhs, one of the minorities in Xinjiang, constituted five percent of Mongolia’s population, Choibalsan believed that he had a strong case for adding many Kazakh domains to his country. The USSR opposed his plan, and Mongolia would no longer be involved in Xinjiang.

The years after the Second World War offered the peoples of Xinjiang a golden opportunity to achieve autonomy or possibly independence, but disunity, the involvement of outsiders, and a terrible accident resulted in Chinese communist control. Some in the Turkic population sided with and sought assistance from the Guomindang; others allied with the communists; and still others hoped for USSR intervention. Fragmentation permitted the Chinese communists to become dominant. An accident – an airplane crash in which three of the most important Eastern Turkistan Republic leaders were killed – removed nationalists who might have challenged communist rule. The convenient elimination of these leaders aroused suspicion that either the Chinese communists or the USSR had deliberately sabotaged the plane.

Whether an accident or sabotage, the People’s Liberation Army (the Chinese communists’ military force) faced scant immediate resistance when it moved into Xinjiang in September and October of 1949. The USSR still planned to have influence in Xinjiang, but the People’s Liberation Army asserted itself by defeating the dissident minority groups and occupying the areas it seized. By 1955, the Chinese communists were sufficiently secure to organize a Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, with autonomous districts and counties as well for the less numerous minorities such as the Kazakhs, Kyrgyz, and others. Critical to these efforts to control Xinjiang was Chinese migration, specifically into the eastern and northern sections of the autonomous region but with small pockets of settlements throughout. Some came as farmers and increased the amount of cultivated land, others were employed in the developing mining and industrial sectors, while still others followed the traditional model of herding in northern Xinjiang. The government organized them into a so-called Production and Construction Corps under the aegis of the military, entrusting them with militia duties along with their usual occupations. The Production and Construction Corps (or the Bingtuan, as it was commonly called in Chinese) became the wealthiest institution in the region. By the mid 1950s, the communists appeared to have stabilized Xinjiang through a relatively moderate policy that emphasized lack of confrontation with and meddling in the cultures, languages, and lifestyles of the minorities.

Tibet had been even freer of China’s domination. From the early nineteenth century on, Qing-dynasty control had eroded. Tibet had become a source of contention between Britain and Russia, which were engaged in the Great Game, a struggle over their interests in central and south Asia. By the early twentieth century, however, Britain had become the principal foreign influence over Tibet, and in 1904 Colonel Francis Younghusband (1863–1942) and his troops entered Lhasa, compelling the Dalai Lama to flee, and imposed a treaty that basically turned Tibet into a British protectorate. After the Qing dynasty fell in 1911, Tibet was virtually detached from China, thanks to substantial influence from Britain. The events leading to and the onset of the Second World War diverted Britain, offering Tibet breathing space. Tibet tried to take advantage; the fourteenth Dalai Lama was selected in 1938, and throughout the war and in the immediate aftermath the Tibetan elite sought foreign support to retain its independence from China. Tibetan envoys attempted to elicit US recognition of Tibetan independence, but the US Department of State considered Tibet to be part of China.

The Chinese communist victory in China galvanized the USA to support Tibet and particularly to aid dissidents seeking Tibetan independence. In November of 1950, communist troops occupied Lhasa. The Dalai Lama fled, but he assigned a delegation to negotiate with the Chinese communists. In May of 1951, the negotiators devised a Seventeen-Point Agreement, which ratified communist rule over Tibet. Yet the Dalai Lama, who returned from exile later in the year, would still be Tibet’s religious leader, and Tibet would be granted some flexibility, with the founding of a Tibet Autonomous Region. The communist regime would allegedly not interfere, at least temporarily, in the social class or theological systems. It would simply foster economic development through construction of roads and mining but would not move quickly to alter Tibetan society. Some Tibetans were certainly hostile to the Chinese, but, by the mid 1950s, the communists controlled Tibet.

Once in power and while establishing their authority over the frontier terrain, the communists faced daunting problems in foreign relations. They first had to devise a proper relationship with the USSR. Their three-decades-long contacts with Stalin and other Soviet leaders had often been tense, although they had almost always abided by Soviet advice and instructions. Stalin was, in part, responsible for the almost disastrous policies the communists had pursued from 1925 to 1927. He had scarcely provided much economic or military ­assistance when Mao and his cohorts were based in Yan’an from 1935 through the Second World War and had not consulted with them about the structure of the postwar world. The Chinese communists were shut out of the Allied conferences at the end of the war and relied on Stalin’s espousal of their interests. They eventually realized that Stalin was more concerned with his own and the USSR’s special needs. Even harder for them to swallow was Stalin’s support for an independent Mongolia, free of Chinese control. In December of 1949, Mao visited the USSR, his first and only journey outside China. Mao should have been prepared for Stalin’s reactions at their meetings, which turned out unfavorably for the Chinese leader. Stalin pledged minimal ­assistance in the communists’ efforts to overwhelm Chiang Kai-shek and then occupy Taiwan, but he promised to provide some economic aid. Once again, this agreement offered little to China. Even more ­exasperating was the ­considerable Soviet influence and economic involvement in the border areas of Xinjiang, Manchuria, and Inner Mongolia. Xinjiang had been linked to the USSR since the 1920s; Soviet troops had liberated Manchuria and still had considerable influence and possible allies there; and many Mongolians in the Soviet-influenced Mongolian People’s Republic conceived of a Pan-Mongolian state that included Inner Mongolia. The potential for disagreements and conflicts was substantial.

Similar conflicts involving Taiwan were also on the horizon. Chiang Kai-shek had retreated to Taiwan after his defeat on the mainland in 1949, and the communists were poised for an attack on the island. Mao and his military commanders recognized that an invasion of Taiwan would be arduous and entail numerous casualties, but they appear to have been prepared for huge losses in such a campaign. Policy makers in the USA assumed that the communists would be successful and were reconciled to their takeover of Taiwan. The Korean War, which started in June of 1950, undermined this scenario. The onset of war between North Korea and South Korea prompted the United Nations Security Council to sanction the dispatch of United Nations troops, composed primarily of soldiers from the USA, to assist South Korea. The USA’s massive firepower compelled North Korean troops to withdraw from Seoul, which they had occupied, and to retreat. The USA-led forces pursued the North Koreans and crossed into North Korea. At the same time, the USA dispatched naval forces to ply the waters between China and Taiwan to prevent a communist takeover of the island. Responding to what they perceived as US threats and fearing a strong US presence in the Pacific, the Chinese communists permitted so-called volunteers to come to the assistance of North Korea. Despite massive casualties, the communists pushed back the United Nations forces and temporarily reoccupied Seoul until the clear United Nations advantage in weaponry compelled them to withdraw from the city. From 1951 to 1953, neither side could gain a substantial advantage over the other, and each did not give up much ground. Finally, after a protracted and debilitating war, the two sides signed a truce agreement in July of 1953.