Nationalists, Muslim Warlords, and the
“Great Northwestern Development” in
Pre-Communist China

Hsiao-ting Lin*

ABSTRACT

This article retraces China’s pre-Communist era (1928-49) and seeks to reveal the
previously unnoticed story of Chinese Nationalists’ opportunistic and strategic
advancement into the Muslim-ruled Uyghuristan or far northwestern frontiers. It
demonstrates how the originally weak, localized, and war-ridden Nationalist regime
gradually infiltrated China’s inland frontiers, where it usually claimed full sovereignty
but where its administrative overtures remained ineffective. It also shows how the
Nationalists took advantage of every possible opportunity to penetrate its previously
fictitious authority into peripheral China in the name of state building and regime
consolidation. As this article illustrates, this process of authority extension, along with the
resultant presence of Nationalist authority in China’s far northwestern borderlands in the
1940s, ironically paved an unintended way for the subsequent Chinese Communist takeover
in the region.

Keywords • Nationalist (Kuomintang) Government • Uyghuristan• Sino-Muslims • Ma
Bufang • Sheng Shicai • grand northwestern development (Kaifa da Xibei)


In September 1999, the Chinese Government announced a grand project
called the Great Western Development (Xibu da kaifa). The main
purpose of this enterprise is to promote social stability and economic
growth in Uyghuristan which have largely been left
out of the nation’s economic boom since 1978. With the strategy of
“stability through development,” the Beijing authorities seek to safeguard
national unity and consolidate border security by enhancing the regional
economy, fostering business development and foreign investment, and
developing infrastructure in China’s far-flung western peripheries. The
introduction of this ambitious program invited excitement and attracted
feverish attention almost overnight. Whereas Communist officials
seldom hesitate to emphasize the significance of this “westward-looking”
advancement in the context of China’s frontier territorial integrity, local
inhabitants in the western regions generally expect the prospect of better
job opportunities as a result of forthcoming investments. On the other
* Hsiao-ting Lin is W. Glenn Campbell and Rita Ricardo-Campbell National Fellow,
Hoover Institution, Stanford University, Stanford, C, U.S..
Hsiao-ting Lin
116
hand, Western governments and the private sector were quick to embrace
the program, which framed its objectives within an attractive discourse
of modernization and reform. In scholarly circles, there is no lack of keen
debate on whether the westward development project will be more
rhetoric than reality.1

The development of China’s far western regions is by no means a
new concept. When probing the issue of westward expansion in modern
China’s historical context, we discover that during the pre-1949
Nationalist period (1928-1949), the ruling Nationalist (Kuomintang;
KMT) regime had already been endeavoring to undertake a series of
“grand northwestern development” (Kaifa da Xibei) programs with the
purpose of opening, colonizing and modernizing Nationalist China’s
northwestern outlying territories. These relatively overlooked attempts
in the 1930s and 1940s, by no means less ambitious and enterprising than
the present initiatives in content or scale, attracted huge anticipation and
caused a nationwide sensation which was very similar to what is
occurring in China today.

What motivated the Chinese Nationalists, whose political authority
during the Nationalist era hardly extended beyond China proper, to
launch their grandiose projects? How did the Nationalists deal with the
Sino-Muslim warlords, who for most of the 1930s and 1940s effectively
dominated the vast northwestern frontiers? What was the consequence
of these northwestward-looking attempts? And, more significantly, in
terms of a broader geo-historical perspective, what sort of impacts had
been engendered by the Nationalist Government’s northwestern
development efforts upon a China that was dominated by its Communist
rival after 1949?

This article re-traces the development path pre-Communist China,
and seeks to reveal the story of Chinese Nationalists’ opportunistic
advancement into the Muslim-ruled territories of China’s far northwest.
It demonstrates how the weak and war-threatened Nationalist central
regime gradually infiltrated China’s inland frontiers where it usually
claimed full sovereignty but where its administrative overtures were
ineffective. It also shows how the Nationalists took advantage of every
possible opportunity to penetrate its previously fictitious authority into
peripheral China, in the name of state building and regime consolidation.
As this article will illustrate, the presence of Nationalist authority in
1 On China’s Great Western Development since the late 1990s, see, for example: Yasuo
Onishi ed., China's Western Development Strategy: Issues and Prospects (Tokyo: Institute of
Developing Economies, 2001); Abigail Sines, “Civilizing the Middle Kingdom’s wild
west,” Central Asian Survey 21, 1 (2002), pp. 5-18; Ding Lu & William A. W. Neilson eds.,
China’s West Region Development: Domestic Strategies and Global Implications (Singapore:
World Scientific Publishing Co., 2004).
Nationalists, Muslim Warlords,
and the “Great Northwestern Development” in Pre-Communist China
117
China’s far northwestern borderlands in the 1940s ironically paved an
unintended way for the subsequent Communist take-over in the region.
The Search for a New Power Base
In September 1931, the Japanese commander in Korea ordered his troops
across the border into south Manchuria and attacked the Chinese
barracks in Mukden. The Chinese troops in Manchuria under Young
Marshal Zhang Xueliang did not offer much resistance, and by the end of
1931 the whole region was completely under Japanese control. In the
spring of 1932, a Tokyo-sponsored Manchukuo, with the ex-Qing emperor
Puyi as its nominal leader, was established. This episode, called the
Mukden incident, was immediately followed by another military clash
between China and Japan in Shanghai. On January 28, 1932 under the
pretext of protecting their perimeter, Japanese marines stationed in the
Shanghai International Settlement suddenly exchanged fire with the
Nationalist troops deployed nearby. The unexpected skirmish soon
developed into a full-scale Japanese bombing and attack on Shanghai’s
Chinese defenders. Although an armistice was arranged in May of that
year, the Nationalist government was forced to accept the drawing of a
neutral zone around the greater Shanghai metropolis and the withdrawal
of its troops from the area.2

The intense Japanese military expansion into Manchuria and other
parts of coastal China soon prompted the higher echelons of the
Nationalist administration to contemplate the security and survival of
their precarious regime. After the Mukden and Shanghai incidents of the
early 1930s, an increasing number of Chinese officials were coming to the
conclusion that an all-out Japanese invasion of China seemed
unavoidable in the long run. As a result, top Nationalist leaders felt the
urgent need to search for a potential inland power base capable of
undertaking enduring resistance against their enemy from the east. It is a
noteworthy fact that in the early 1930s, it was the vast northwest, not the
southwest where the Nationalists subsequently headquartered their
wartime capital. Immediately following the Japanese attack on Shanghai,
the Nationalists announced that China’s national capital would be
temporarily moved from Nanking, which was close to Shanghai, to
Luoyang, in Henan Province. Although activities gradually returned to
normal in Nanking after a ceasefire was reached in Shanghai, Xi’an, the
capital city of Shaanxi Province, was officially made Nationalist China’s
2 Lloyd E. Eastman, Jerome Chen, Suzanne Pepper and Lyman van Slyke, The Nationalist
Era in China, 1927-1949 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), pp. 14, 120;
Jonathan D. Spence, The Search for Modern China (New York: Norton, 1990), pp. 388-396.
Hsiao-ting Lin
118
“Western national capital” (Xi Jing) to be used in the event of repeat
coastal invasion of China.3

Apart from Nationalist government officials, grassroots Han Chinese
as well as the mass media in China proper were also quick to realize the
strategic need to develop the northwest in the face of possible Japanese
military encroachment. This growing awareness was evident from the
sudden blooming of societies, study groups and publications on China’s
northwestern affairs after the Mukden incident. In 1932 alone, there were
at least a dozen new societies related to northwestern affairs set up in
Peking, Nanking and Shanghai, each devoting itself to research on
China’s far western frontier lands. These groups published their own
journals and periodicals, endeavoring to systematically introduce China’s
far northwestern regions to intellectuals and commoners in China proper.
Some of these well-organized societies, such as the Study Group of
Northwestern Affairs (Xibei Wenti Yanjiuhui) in Shanghai, were able to
attract not only scholars and students, but also some high-ranking KMT
officials, such as Dai Chuanxian, then President of the Examination
Yuan, and Zhang Ji, an influential member of the KMT Central
Committee. Gradually, the Study Group of Northwestern Affairs (Xibei
Wenti Yanjiuhui) in Shanghai became an influential advisory board to
the Nationalist regime vis-à-vis its northwestern dealings.4

After the catastrophic episodes in Mukden and Shanghai in the early
1930s, Chinese public opinion allowed no delay in urging the central
government to take concrete measures to bring the northwest frontiers
closer into Nanking’s administrative orbit. Nor did it forget to alert the
people in China proper to the importance of opening the Northwest for
the sake of national survival. Taking the influential Da Gong Bao (The
Impartial Daily) of Tianjin as an example, on April 26, 1932 its editorial
pointed out that developing the northwest was “the only way out” for the
war-threatened Nationalist China. This assertion, as the editorial
continued, was based on the fact that China proper could no longer be
securely protected due to the fall of Manchuria to the Japanese. The Da
Gong Bao meanwhile argued that the northwest was a better choice for
the Nationalists because southwest China was plagued by ceaseless
3 “Important resolutions approved in the 4th KMT Central Committee”, March 1932, in
Second Historical Archives of China ed., Zhonghua Minguoshi Dang’an Ziliao Huibian
(Collection of Republican historical materials from the archives) (hereafter, ZMDZH)
(Nanjing: Jiangsu guji chubanshe, 1994), 5: 1, Politics (2), p. 365.
4 Shen Sherong, “Jiu-yi-ba Shibian Hou kaifa Xibei sichao di xingqi” (The rise of the
trend of thought on developing the Northwest after the Mukden incident), Ningxia Daxue
Xuebao (Journal of University of Ningxia) 4, (1995), pp. 9-15. Other important societies on
China’s northwestern affairs of this period included the Northwest Association (Xibei
Xieshe) and Society for the Northwest Public Studies (Xibei Gongxueshe) in Beijing, the
Developing the Northwest Association (Kaifa Xibei Xiehui) in Nanking, and the
Northwest Public Forum Association (Xibei Gonglunshe) in Shanghai.
Nationalists, Muslim Warlords,
and the “Great Northwestern Development” in Pre-Communist China
119
warfare among local warlords, who gave little more than superficial
allegiance to the central authorities in Nanking.5


In response to high expectations from the public concerning muchneeded
northwestern development, in late 1932 the Nationalist center
promulgated a series of proposals aimed at promoting regional
infrastructure development in the areas of: economy, industry, forestry,
irrigation, husbandry, and mining in China’s western peripheries.
According to this new scheme, a Reclamation Committee was soon to be
set up with ministerial status under direct control of the Executive Yuan
and would take charge of related affairs. Despite its financial constraints,
the Nationalist regime declared that a large sum of the national
expenditure would be allocated to this new governmental organ in
support of its ends.6 The proposal was widely appreciated and welcomed,
as expected, and was momentarily interpreted as a clear display of
Nanking’s resolution to take concrete actions towards the transformation
of China’s northwest into a solid new power base to be used against the
Japanese.

However, the mass media in China proper may have inadvertently
ignored the fact that Nationalist influence in the northwestern region
was as weak as in southwest China. Since the late nineteenth century, the
northwestern provinces of Gansu, Ningxia and Qinghai had been
administered by the local Tungan Muslim family named Ma. This Ma
family achieved dominance in Chinese Central Asia, starting what was,
in effect, a small dynasty of its own. From the beginning of the
republican era until the end of the 1920s, the brothers Ma Qi and Ma Lin
ruled the Gansu Corridor and Qinghai, followed in the 1930s by Ma Qi’s
sons, Ma Bufang and Ma Buqing. Another branch of the Ma family rose
to power in Ningxia and southern Gansu: Ma Hongbin built his own
power base in southern Gansu in the 1920s, and in the early 1930s he
became Governor of Gansu Province. His cousin, Ma Hongkui, took
power in Ningxia, and in 1931 became Governor of that province, where
he ruled for the following decade and a half.7

West of the Ma-dominated territories, was theUyghuristan. A vast, remote, and sparsely populated region,
Uyghuristan did not become an official province of Qing China until 1884,
5 Editorial entitled “On the construction of the Northwest,” Da Gong Bao (The Impartial
Daily) (Tianjin), April 26 1932.
6 “Outlines of the scheme for the development of the northwest,” Executive Yuan, dated
December 19 1932, in ZMDZH, pp. 391-392.
7 On the history of the Ma family in northwest China, see Jonathan N. Lipman, Familiar
Strangers: A History of Muslims in Northwest China (Seattle: University of Washington
Press, 1997), esp. chapters 4 and 5; A. Doak Barnett, China’s Far West: Four Decades of
Change (Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press, 1993); Qinghai Provincial Government ed.,
Qinghai San Ma (The three Mas in Qinghai) (Beijing: Zhongguo wenshi chubanshe, 1988).
Hsiao-ting Lin
120

when prominent general, Zuo Zongtang pacified the Muslim rebellion
and re-conquered Central Asia. It was ethnically and culturally distinct,
with a large majority of various non-Han peoples, most of which were
Muslims Uyghurs. Uyghuristan’s distance from the main centers of Chinese power
and culture, together with its inherent obstacles to communication and
transportation, made it extremely difficult for Chinese leaders to bind it
to the rest of the country. Between 1912 and 1928, Uyghuristan was under the
administration of Yang Zengxin, an ex-Qing official who acknowledged
the authority of the Peking republican government, but for all intents and
purposes paid no attention to it. Yang was assassinated in 1928 by his
political enemies in Uyghuristan, and his unpopular successor, Jin Shuren,
was more corrupt and less efficient than Yang. After 1928, the provincial
government under Jin was even less concerned about obeying Chiang
Kai-shek’s new Nationalist regime in Nanking. In the spring of 1933, Jin
was toppled by a Muslim jihad led by Ma Zhongying, a member of the
same Ma family which dominated Ostturkestan/Uyghuristan.8
After Jin Shuren fled from Urumqi/Uyghuristan in 1933, the strongest militarist in
the province, Sheng Shicai, seized power, and Nanking eventually
confirmed him as the new leader of Uyghuristan. Yet, Sheng also had little to
do with Chiang Kai-shek and the KMT Nationalists. Before long, Sheng
adopted a policy of close rapport with Soviet Russia which, in terms of
economic importance and communications facilities, was closer than the
heartland of China. The Soviets provided Sheng’s provincial regime with
various kinds of technical aid and, on more than one occasion, with
military support against Sheng’s Muslim rivals in Central Asia. Sheng
Shicai ruled this vast territory from 1933 onwards. Like his predecessors,
Sheng gave little more than nominal allegiance to Chiang Kai-shek’s
KMT central regime.9

Spatial Struggle and Political Compromise
Chiang Kai-shek and his associates in Nanking were fully aware that as
long as the Ma Muslim warlords continued to maintain a free reign in
China’s northwestern sphere of influence,, there would be little chance
for the KMT to effectively implement its newly proposed “great
northwestern development” projects which aimed to gradually turn the
region into a new Nationalist bastion of power. However, by the summer
of 1933, for the first time since their rise to power in 1928, an opportunity
8 See Allen S. Whiting & Sheng Shih-ts’ai, Sinkiang: Pawn or Pivot? (East Lansing,
Michigan: Michigan State University Press, 1958), pp. 3-20; Colin Mackerras, China’s
Minorities: Integration and Modernization in the Twentieth Century (Hong Kong: Oxford
University Press, 1994), esp. chapter 4.
9 A thorough investigation of the history of Republican Xinjiang can be found in Andrew
D. W. Forbes, Warlords and Muslims in Chinese Central Asia: A Political History of
Republican Sinkiang, 1911-1949 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986).
Nationalists, Muslim Warlords,
and the “Great Northwestern Development” in Pre-Communist China
121

appeared for the power-limited Nationalists to extend their influence into
the Ma-dominated territories. In order to weaken Nanking’s credibility,
in early 1933 Marshal Feng Yuxiang, one of Chiang Kai-shek’s major
rivals, organized a joint force in Suiyuan Province with the aim of
fighting against the Japanese invasion.10 Due to Feng’s attempts to build
an alliance of politicians and militarists in northern China among those
who opposed Chiang’s leadership, Nanking regarded him as a threat to
its political legitimacy, and therefore sought to quell his campaign at any
cost. A division led by General Sun Dianying, then deployed on the
strategic Beijing-Suiyuan railroad, and still claiming to be loyal to
Nanking, became very critical of Chiang Kai-shek’s group. If Sun was
bribed into siding with Feng’s northern faction, Nanking would be in a
precarious position vis-à-vis its rebels. Viewing it as imperative to move
Sun out of the trouble spot, Chiang hastily instructed Sun that he
transfer his troops westward into northwest Qinghai with the excuse of
“colonizing and reclaiming” that piece of wasteland. Sun, viewing this
order as a gift from Chiang which allowed him to create an influential
sphere of his own, accepted immediately.11

The Nationalist Government’s maneuver was two-pronged. On the
one hand it sought to keep Sun Dianying away from Feng Yuxiang’s
group. On the other hand, under the pretext of the political slogan of
“developing the Northwest,” Nanking was manipulating Sun to
undermine Ma authority, and develop influence in the region. Yet
Nanking’s calculated strategy was greeted with tremendous opposition
from almost every Muslim warlord. Upon hearing of the likely arrival of
Sun’s troops which numbered around 60,000, Qinghai Governor Ma Lin
rejected the idea, urging Nanking to withdraw the order. Ma Lin not only
instigated local Tibetan and Mongolian groups to send strong protests to
Nanking, he even went as far as to threaten his resignation from the post
of Governor of Qinghai.12 Ningxia Governor, Ma Hongkui, asserted that
due to “serious crop failures and lack of food provisions in Ningxia,” he
would not allow Sun’s troops to enter his provincial domain en route to
their final destination in Qinghai. Ma Hongkui, like Ma Lin, also
10 “China (Military): Situation Report”, received by the U. S. War Department, May 31
1933, in United States Military Intelligence Report, China, 1911-1941 (Frederick, MD: University
Publication of America, 1983), microfilm (hereafter, USMIR), reel 5.
11 See Sun Dianying’s dispatches to Lin Sen (Head of the Nationalist Government) and
Premier Wang Jingwei, June 17 1933, in Minguo Dang’an (The Republican Archives)
(Nanjing), 1994 (4), p. 27; “China (Military): Situation Report”, U. S. War Department,
received July 19 and August 10 1933, USMIR, reel 9.
12 Ma Lin to Chiang Kai-shek and Wang Jingwei, June 30 1933; The Qinghai Provincial
Government to the Nationalist Government, July 2 1933; Ma Lin to Lin Sen, July 5 1933 in
Minguo Dang’an, pp. 28-29.
Hsiao-ting Lin
122

threatened to resign from his governorship if Chiang Kai-shek did not
reverse his “unwise” decision.13

Faced with enormous pressures from the Muslims warlords, the
power-weak yet opportunistic Nanking authorities decided to abandon
their attempts to use Sun Dianying as a means to penetrate the
Northwest. In November 1933, in the face of growing tumult in the
northwestern rim, Chiang Kai-shek finally backed down. He officially
ordered that Sun’s division, then moving slowly towards the Suiyuan-
Ningxia border, halt and wait for further instructions from Nanking.
Meanwhile, Sun’s soldiers, who were already trapped in an impasse and
were plagued with imminent shortages of food provisions in the locale,
had terribly low morale and were showing signs of mental instability.14
The dire situation eventually prompted Sun Dianying to act on his own.
In early 1934, disregarding Chiang Kai-shek’s open instruction, Sun
ordered his troops to advance westward across the Ningxia boundary,
causing an immediate military clash between Sun’s troops and Ma
Hongkui’s Muslim force, which was deployed on the provincial border.
With the view of safeguarding their common interests in the Northwest,
almost all of the important Ma family members began to send their own
forces to Ningxia as reinforcement in the fight with Sun. At this
juncture, as Chiang Kai-shek no longer saw a possibility to play the Sun
card against the Mas, he opportunistically changed his attitude, urging
the Mas to take any “necessary actions” in order to punish the
“obstinate” Sun Dianying. In the final phase of the armed conflict,
Nanking even assisted Ma Hongkui with some well-equipped munitions,
including a reconnaissance plane, to facilitate his battle with Sun. In
March, Sun’s force was defeated and eventually absorbed into the Shanxi
provincial garrison.15

The Sun Dianying incident had caused considerable damage to the
Nationalist regime’s reputation. The incident also prompted high
officials in Nanking to realize that the Ma family held on tightly to its
traditional authority in northwestern China, and it could not be easily
crushed by means of military engagement. Accordingly, Chiang Kai-shek
decided to dismiss the use of drastic methods and, from the Sun
13 See: Ma Hongkui to the Nationalist Government, September 21 1933, and Ningxia
Provincial Government to the Executive Yuan, October 10 1933, in Minguo Dang’an, pp.
33, 35.
14 Sun Dianying to Wang Jingwei, October 11 1933, in Minguo Dang’an, p. 36.
15 See: Wang Jianping, “Xibei Si Ma Heji Sun Dianying di Huiyi” (A reminiscence of the
joint attack on Sun Dianying by the four Mas of the Northwest), in ed., Ningxia San Ma
Government of Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region (The three Mas in Ningxia) (Beijing:
Zhongguo wenshizhe chubanshe, 1988), pp. 169-180; Shen Sherong and Guo Yingchun,
“Sun Dianying Tunkun Qinghai Wenti zai Renshi” (Reconsidering the issue of Sun
Dianying’s reclamation of Qinghai), in Guyuan Shizhuan Xuebao (Journal of Guyuan
Teachers College) 5 (1998), pp. 18-22.
Nationalists, Muslim Warlords,
and the “Great Northwestern Development” in Pre-Communist China
123
Dianying incident onwards, was determined to reinforce Nationalist
influence in the region by peaceful penetration.16 On the other hand,
Chiang’s last-minute willingness to compromise with the Muslims in the
Sun-Ma conflict resulted in the payment of unexpected dividends. After
the dust settled in the northern steppe, the Ma Muslim warlords
continued to give nominal allegiance to Nanking. Moreover, in return for
Chiang’s retreat from supporting Sun, the Mas, for the first time, openly
declared their readiness to allow Nationalist high officials to enter their
sphere of influence, with the latter doing so, based on the excuse of
inspecting and investigating the implementation of the previously
proposed “grand northwestern development” program.17

Set against this political background, from the spring of 1934 through
the end of that year, a cluster of authoritative Nationalist personages
were busy flying between Nanking and the northwest in order to conduct
their “inspection tours.” In April 1934, Dai Chuanxian, Chiang Kai-shek’s
most trusted frontier advisor, was the first Nationalist high-ranking
official to reach Xining, the provincial capital of Qinghai.18 Dai was
followed by T. V. Soong and Kong Xiangxi (H. H. Kung), Chiang’s two
brothers-in-law, who were then in charge of Nationalist China’s
economic and financial planning. Soong’s trip, in particular, encompassed
almost the entire Ma-ruled domains, including southern Gansu, Qinghai
and Ningxia provinces, where he was warmly received, meeting with
every influential regional leader. Shortly after Soong’s tour in the
northwest, Nanking publicly announced that a branch office of the
National Economic Council would soon be established in Lanzhou to
execute the related development projects in that region.19 There were also
lively discussions in the national capital over the possibility of
emigrating surplus Han Chinese from China proper to the northwest in
order to cultivate and reclaim that region. In addition, the Nationalist
Government pledged more financial subsidies to the Mas, contingent on
16 Yang Xiaoping, Ma Bufang Jiazu di Xingshuai (The rise and fall of the Ma Bufang
family) (Xining: Qinghai renmin chubanshe, 1986), pp. 107-121; Qinghai San Ma, pp. 200-
201.
17 Gao Yi, Jiang Jieshi yu Xibei Si Ma (Chiang Kai-shek and the four Mas in the
Northwest) (Beijing: Jingcha jiaoyu chubanshe, 1993), pp. 84-101; Hao Weimin ed.,
Neimenggu Jindai shi (A history of modern Inner Mongolia) (Hohhot: Neimenggu
Daxue chubanshe, 1990), pp. 120-129.
18 Zhongyang Ribao (Central Daily) (Nanking), April 15 1934, p. 2; Dai Chuanxian’s
personal letter to Chiang Kai-shek, April 30 1934, in Chen Tianxi ed., Dai Jitao Xiansheng
Wencun Xubian (The sequel of Mr. Dai Jitao’s documents) (Taipei: Kuomintang
Historical Committee, 1967), p. 176.
19 Zhongyang Ribao, May 2, May 9, May 15 and June 22 1934; Shen Bao (Courier Mail)
(Shanghai), May 9 and 10, 1934.
Hsiao-ting Lin
124their willingness to collaborate closely with the Nationalists in the
development of the Northwest.20
Eventually, in the fall of 1934, it was Chiang Kai-shek himself who
decided to launch his own inspection tour deep into Muslim-controlled
northwest China. Despite being preoccupied with his recently launched
military encirclement against the Chinese Communists, Chiang spent
nearly a month traveling between the borderlands of northwest and Inner
Mongolia. During his stay in Shaanxi, Gansu and Ningxia provinces,
Chiang publicly expressed his determination to turn the entire northwest
into a strategic base for the survival of the Chinese nation. He appealed
to his country fellowmen to “go westward,” hoping to make them aware
of their past mistakes in neglecting the vast rich fertile land. Chiang, at
the same time, took pains to convince the Muslim warlords that it would
best serve their interests to cooperate with Nanking by allowing the
entry of KMT-owned capital, technologies, and Nanking-appointed
personnel into their satrapies.21

In hindsight, the Nanking officials’ successive high-profile visits to
the northwest from 1934-35 failed to lead to the development of an
alternate Nationalist power base there. Moreover, perhaps the
Nationalist leaders’ experiences in the Muslim-ruled territories
convinced them that northwestern China, given its rigorous weather
conditions, harsh living environment and occasional famines, was
actually not an ideal location for them to retreat to in the event of a fullscale
Japanese invasion.22 Nevertheless, Nationalist journeys to the west,
their increasingly frequent interactions with the local Muslim leaders,
and the dispatches of government-sponsored survey parties to the
frontiers had momentarily created a perception that the war-menaced
Nationalist regime was indeed endeavoring to civilize China’s far
northwestern borderland, hoping to eventually bring it under Nanking’s
tighter control. The Nationalists’ “rhetorical” development of
northwestern China thus brought about a certain degree of success in
20 Mi Zhizhong, “Jushi Zhumu zhi Xibei” (A Northwest that catches world-wide
attention), in Tuo Huang (Reclamation) (Nanking) 2, 3 (1934), pp. 3-10; Zhang Naiwen,
Yi-jiu-san-liu Nian (The year 1936) (Shanghai: Lehua shuju, 1936), pp. 293-299.
21 “China (Military): Situation Report,” U. S. War Department, received September 26
1934, USMIR, reel 9; “Jiang Weiyuanzhan dui Ningxia Gejie Xunhuaci” (The
Generalissimo’s admonitory talk to all circles in Ningxia), in Kaifa Xibei (Developing the
Northwest) (Nanking), 2, 4 (1934), pp. 1-3; “Jiang Weiyuanzhan Xunxing Gesheng hou
zhi Guangan” (Some thoughts of the Generalissimo after his inspection tour in the
Northwestern provinces), ibid., 2, 5 (1934), pp. 1-3.
22 Sheng Sherong, “Jiang Jieshi di Xibei Zhanlueguan” (Chiang Kai-shek’s strategic views
on the Northwest), Guyuan Shizhuan Xuebao 1 (2003), pp. 53-58.
Nationalists, Muslim Warlords,
and the “Great Northwestern Development” in Pre-Communist China
125
terms of the elevation of its national prestige, although its authority in
that area remained illusory and fragile.23

Breaking the Muslim Barriers

Interests in opening the northwest and transforming that region into
Nationalist China’s new strategic base continued to be widespread in
China proper until late 1935, when Chiang Kai-shek began to divert his
full attention to southwest China. The Chinese Communists’ Long
March, commencing in late 1934, provided Chiang Kai-shek with an
unprecedented opportunity to insert his military forces and political
influence into the provinces of southwest China. In order to pursue the
retreating Communists, Chiang’s well-equipped armies entered Hunan,
Guizhou, Sichuan, and Yunnan provinces. The autonomous provincial
militarists, feeling greatly endangered by the presence of the
Communists, reluctantly accepted the Nationalist armies to help expel
the unwelcome Reds. Chiang Kai-shek fully exploited the opportunity to
initiate regime-consolidation and state-building programs in these areas.
Once the Nationalist forces had entered a province, the Nankingappointed
agents would begin to impose “reforms” designed to break
down that province’s isolation.24 In Sichuan, for example, the local
garrison districts (fangqu), which served as the military and economic
bases for several regional warlords, were abolished and soon replaced
with a more centralized system of provincial administration. A massive
road-construction project, aimed at integrating the province politically
and militarily with the rest of the nation, was launched. Sichuan was also
drawn into Nanking’s economic and financial orbit as a result of the
widespread use of Nationalist currency. As a result of the KMT’s anti-
Communist campaigns in 1935-36, the autonomy and political
maneuverability of the provincial warlords in the Southwest had been
sharply reduced, and the power and prestige of the KMT regime had been
commensurately enhanced.25

The successful penetration into southwest China led the Nationalists
to choose Sichuan as their inland power base vis-à-vis the Japanese
invasion. As the national capital was relocated from Nanking to
23 On Chinese mass media’s positive comments about the KMT’s northwestern
advancement movement, see, for instance: Da Gong Bao, the editorials for August 13 and
14 1936; Sheng Ran, “Xibei Jiaotong Jianshe zhi Wojian” (My opinions about the
construction of communication facilities in the northwest), in Bianjiang (Frontier biweekly)
(Nanking), 1 (1936), pp. 12-19.
24 “China (Military): Situation report”, U. S. War Department, received April 9 1935,
USMIR, reel 9; Eastman et al., The Nationalist Era in China, pp. 32-36.
25 On Nanking’s effort to bring Sichuan into its closer administrative orbit, see Robert A
Kapp, Szechwan and Chinese Republic: Provincial Militarism and Central Power, 1911-1938 (New
Haven: Yale University Press, 1973), pp. 99-120.
Hsiao-ting Lin
126

Chongqing after the outbreak of the Sino-Japanese war in mid-1937,
China’s national center of gravity was moved from coastal provinces to
the southwest provinces. Nevertheless, the Muslim-dominated
northwestern China remained strategically and militarily important to
the war-beleaguered Nationalist regime. During the initial stages of the
war, when Soviet Russia was one of very few nations in the world
offering substantial assistance to Chiang Kai-shek, its military equipment
and other necessary war materials had to be transported into Sichuan
proper via Central Asia. Given their geopolitical importance in bridging
Japanese-besieged southwest China and Soviet Central Asia, the
northwestern provinces were crucial to the survival of China and the
security of the Nationalist regime.26

In addition, by around 1939-40, news concerning the successful
drilling of oil fields in Yumen, a previously unknown oasis in the Gansu
Corridor, as well as the discovery of other potential oil deposits in
Qinghai and other parts of Gansu province, added further military,
strategic, and morale importance to Nationalist China’s northwestern
borderlands. By the early 1940s, bringing the Ma family-ruled
northwestern provinces of China into Nationalist control became one of
the most urgent tasks for Chiang Kai-shek and his strategists in
Chongqing. Top Nationalist political and security planners were secretly
planning to enlarge existing pre-war underground units in the
Northwestern border areas of Qinghai, Ordos and Alashan, and were
considering setting up new stations in western Yunnan, northern
Uyghuristan and Tibet proper. Chiang Kai-shek and his military
planners were also calculating the feasibility of deploying more KMT
troops on the Muslim-ruled Ningxia-Gansu border, as a first step
towards controlling the entire northwest.27 It became obvious that with
regime survival as their primary concern, Chiang and his staff felt it
necessary to take a more proactive approach in strengthening the
Nationalists’ previously nominal position in China’s far western frontier
areas.

26 Owen Lattimore, “China’s Turkistan-Siberian Supply Road,” in Pacific Affairs 13, 4
(December 1940), pp. 393-412; Martin R. Norins, “The New Sinkiang-China’s Link with
the Middle East,” Pacific Affairs 15, 4 (December 1942), pp. 457-470. On the Chinese-Soviet
relations at the beginning of the Sino-Japanese war, see also: John W. Garver, Chinese-
Soviet Relations 1937-1945: The Diplomacy of Chinese Nationalism (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 1988).
27 See: The Kuomintang Party Archives (Taipei), Archives of the Supreme National
Defense Council (hereafter, ASNDC), 003/103, “The Mongolian and Tibetan Affairs
Commission administrative schedule for the second stage of war”, April 1939; Academia
Historica (Taipei), President Chiang Kai-shek Archives, Choubi (Plans and Directives)
(hereafter, CB), 08-0541, Chiang Kai-shek’s instructions to Zhu Shaoliang (Commander of
the 8th War Zone), January 23 1938; 08-1408, Chiang to Zhu, January 23 1939; 08-2298,
Chiang’s secret dispatch to He Guoguang (Director of the Generalissimo’s Field
Headquarters in Sichuan), January 20 1940.
Nationalists, Muslim Warlords,
and the “Great Northwestern Development” in Pre-Communist China
127
In 1942, Chongqing successfully extended its full authority into the
Gansu Corridor for the first time, by removing the local Muslim leader,
Ma Buqing, from the region. Once again, this calculated strategy to
infiltrate northwestern China was made possible through opportunism, if
not luck. Ma Buqing and his valiant cavalry were caught between areas
controlled by his brother, Ma Bufang, in Qinghai and his cousin, Ma
Hongkui, in Ningxia. Earlier in 1941, Chiang Kai-shek became aware that
Ma Bufang was on extremely bad terms with his brother, Ma Buqing, in
the Gansu Corridor, whom Ma Bufang gradually perceived as a potential
rival among his other Ma family members. Chiang therefore endeavored
to persuade Ma Bufang into collaborating with Chongqing, and to help
the Nationalists gain the control of the Gansu Corridor. In return,
Chiang promised Ma Bufang that he would support his take over of Ma
Buqing’s force, ending this brother’s military and political career in
northwestern China.28 Chiang Kai-shek also pledged to Ma Bufang that,
upon completion of their business deal, more financial subsidies would be
expected from Chongqing to Xining. Chiang meanwhile assured Ma
Bufang that the KMT would soon begin to invest a considerable sum of
money in his personal enterprises in Qinghai.29 Obviously Ma Bufang
was satisfied with Chiang’s offer.

As a result, in the summer of 1942, Chiang Kai-shek instructed Ma
Buqing to transfer his troops to the Tsaidam Marsh in northwestern
Qinghai, with the intention of colonizing and guarding that wasteland.30
This was similar to the task that Chiang had given to Sun Dianying
nearly a decade earlier, although within a rather different political and
strategic context. Shocked by this turn of events, the unprepared Muslim
general immediately turned to his other Ma family members for aid.
Predictably, he did not succeed. Unable to secure any support from his
brother or cousins in Qinghai and Ningxia, the disheartened Ma Buqing
could do nothing but comply. According to one report submitted to
Chiang around this time, in the summer of 1942, Ma Buqing’s 30,000
Muslim cavalrymen moved from their Gansu Corridor garrison posts
across the Qilienshan (Richtofen Mountains) to settle down in
northwestern Qinghai. This move also marked the end of the legend of
Ma Buqing, who, for 25 years, had been a crack horseman fighting and
28 Jin Shaoxian, “Yishu Guomindang Yuanlao Wu Zhongxin” (A memorial narration of
the KMT veteran Wu Zhongxin), in Wenshi Ziliao Xuanji (Selections of literary and
historical materials), 118 (1989), pp. 118-119.
29 Yang, Ma Bufang Jiazu di Xingshuai, pp. 190-212; Public Record Office, War Office
Records (WO), 208/268, Office of Military Attaché of the British Embassy in China to
the British War Office, November 12 1942; FO 436/16518 F5103/254/10, Report from
Teichman in Lanzhou to Sir Horace Seymour (British Ambassador to China), September
3 1943, enclosed in Seymour to Foreign Office, September 14 1943.
30 CB, 09-1406, Chiang Kai-shek’s instruction to Ma Buqing, July 19 1942.
Hsiao-ting Lin
128

guarding the Gansu, Qinghai and Ningxia deserts, grasslands and oases.31
Henceforth, Chiang Kai-shek’s own Nationalist forces quickly moved
into the strategically significant Gansu Corridor along the road to
Uyghuristan, garrisoning the long strip of land west of the Yellow River.
These troops were subsequently found, as one foreign observation report
later described, “in every district city as far west as the further outposts
of Gansu Province in the sands of Central Asia.”32

The successful removal of Ma Buqing from the Gansu Corridor,
together with the triumph of breaking up the Muslim bloc in the
Northwest, led the confident Chiang Kai-shek to launch, in the summer
of 1942, another grandiose inspection tour of the Gansu Corridor, as well
as nearby warlord domains in Qinghai and Ningxia.33 During his visits to
these border regions, Chiang once again urged the usually obstinate
Muslim warlords to ensure that they would fully cooperate with
Chongqing, and fight against the Japanese. In particular, Chiang made
sure to spare some time in Qinghai to address local Muslim tribesmen,
and Mongolian and Tibetan nobility, who had only paid token tribute to
Chinese suzerainty, and who might have been shifting their political
allegiance from China to Japan as they saw fit.34 When staying in
Ningxia, Chiang Kai-shek also openly appealed to the local Muslim
leadership for full cooperation with the KMT. He promised Governor
Ma Hongkui that more financial resources could be expected from
Chongqing. In exchange, Chiang stressed that the KMT should
henceforth have greater authority in the military and political affairs of
the region.35

It was not surprising that the Mas of the northwest welcomed the
military and financial resources from Chiang’s central regime.
Nevertheless, the bourgeoning presence of Nationalist political and
military influence in the Northwest would inevitably inflict increasing
31 WO 208/428, “Moslem soldiers in Tsaidam Basin: Guarding Flank of China’s
Northwest Road”, extract from China Newsweek 8 (October 24 1942).
32 FO 436/16605 F6275/254/10, Report from Teichman in Tihwa (Urumqi), dated
September 24 1943, enclosed in the British Embassy in China to Foreign Office, November
14 1943.
33 WO 208/268, “China News”, issued by the London Office of the Chinese Ministry of
Information, dated September 22 1942.
34 See: Chiang Kai-shek’s speech to the non-Han elites in Xining, in Qin Xiaoyi ed.,
Zongtong Jianggong Sixiang Yanlun Zongji (General collections of President Chiang Kaishek’s
thoughts and speeches) (Taipei: Kuomintang Historical Committee, 1984), 19, pp.
216-218; Zhongyang Dangwu Gongbao (Gazette of the KMT central party affairs)
(Chongqing) 4, 19 (September 1942), pp. 23-24; Zhongyang Zhoubao (The KMT central
weekly) (Chongqing) 5, 19 (December 1942).
35 Chiang Kai-shek, “Ningxia Junshi Huibao Xunci” [A speech of admonition for the
military briefing in Ningxia], dated September 2 1942, in Qin ed., Zongtong Jianggong
Sixiang Yanlun Zongji, Vol. 19, pp. 219-228; FO 436/16373 F7411/1689/10, Seymour to
Foreign Office, October 5 1942.
Nationalists, Muslim Warlords,
and the “Great Northwestern Development” in Pre-Communist China
129
pressures upon these Muslim generals. Shortly after Chiang Kai-shek’s
inspection tour, a flurry of KMT government officials, military advisors,
and political organizations began to emerge (with the intent to supervise
local affairs) not only in a Gansu Corridor, now dominated by the
Nationalists, but also in the Qinghai and Ningxia provinces. The wellknown
Yumen oil fields were now entirely administered by the
Chongqing-appointed officials. A number of branch offices of the KMT
party committee and Chiang Kai-shek’s military field headquarters were
even stationed in the remotest territories of the Alashan Banner, on the
Sino-Outer Mongolian border.36 Towards the end of 1942, the political
pressure from Chongqing became so intense, that even the stubborn
Muslim general, Ma Hongkui, was obliged to instruct all Muslim ahongs
(religious instructors) in his Ningxia domain to incorporate patriotic
Nationalist political ideology into their daily sermons. This was done
with the mixed purpose of counteracting the Japanese and the Chinese
Communists, who were then governing the nearby border region.37
The Northwest as Wartime China’s Promised Land
The unexpected Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, in December 1941,
brought Nationalist China, the U.S., Soviet Russia, and Britain together
as allies fighting against the Axis powers. High officials in Chongqing
were theoretically no longer fighting alone. In early 1942 the supposedly
invincible Soviet Red Army suffered disastrous defeats in Eastern Europe
at the hands of the Germans, and Moscow was momentarily too
incapacitated to take care of affairs in remote Central Asia. On the other
hand, expecting that Hitler would eventually overpower Soviet Russia,
and that the trouble-ridden Stalin was unlikely to provide any further aid
to his autonomous provincial regime, Uyghuristan ruler, Sheng Shicai, was
determined to switch from his previous pro-Moscow policy to an anti-
Communist stance. The shrewd Sheng was quick enough to find out that
it would serve his best interests to patch up his relations with Chiang
Kai-shek, who was now backed by the U.S. diplomatically, financially
and militarily.38

Due to a shifting political landscape in Chinese Central Asia, Chiang
Kai-shek and his regime were once again given an extraordinary
36 Qi Tao, “Gaishu Guomindang Zhengfu dui yuan Alashan qi di Tongzhi” (A general
account of the KMT’s rule over Alashan Banner), in Alashan Meng Wenshi (Literary and
historical materials of Alashan League), 2 (1986), pp. 49-80.
37 Wu Zhongli ed., Ningxia Jindai Lishi Jinian (The chronological history of modern
Ningxia) (Yinchuan: Ningxia renmin chubanshe, 1987), pp. 286-291; Hu Pingsheng,
Minguo Shiqi di Ningxiasheng (Ningxia Province in the Republican period) (Taipei:
Xuesheng Shuju, 1988), pp. 153-185.
38 Whiting and Sheng, Sinkiang: Pawn or Pivot? pp. 51-53; Harriet Moore, “Soviet Far
Eastern Relations since 1941,” Pacific Affairs 17, 3 (September 1944), pp. 294-310.
Hsiao-ting Lin
130


opportunity to extend their formerly non-existent authority into
Uyghuristan. Covert negotiations between Urumqi and Chongqing
had been underway until the summer of 1942, when a secret
understanding was reached between Sheng Shicai and Chiang Kai-shek.
Shortly afterwards, Sheng made a formal declaration of allegiance to
Chiang Kai-shek. In return for Sheng Shicai’s willingness to cooperate
with the Nationalists, Chiang Kai-shek pledged that he would forgive
Sheng’s “past misdeeds in Xinjiang,” assuring Sheng that his position in
Ürümchi/Urumqi would remain intact.39

Toward the end of 1942, at Sheng Shicai’s insistence, Soviet military
and technical personnel began to withdraw fromUyghuristan, giving way to
a strengthened Nationalist political, economic and financial presence in
the province. The Nationalist troops, already deployed in the Gansu
Corridor, began to cross the Gansu-Uyghuristan provincial border and were
eventually stationed at Hami, replacing the well-known Soviet “Eighth
Regiment” infantry force. This victory was symbolic of Chongqing’s
preliminary success in asserting its authority overUyghuristan.40 Chiang
Kai-shek’s pleasure regarding Uyghuristan’s return to the Nationalist fold
was revealed in his diary. In December 21, 1942, Chiang wrote:
“[T]he territory from Lanzhou in Gansu to Ili in Xinjiang, covering a
distance of 3,000 kilometers, with an area twice as large as Manchuria, has now
come under Central control. With Xinjiang under Central control, our rear areas
have been consolidated.”41

By late 1943, when Sheng Shicai realized that Moscow’s defeat was
neither imminent nor even likely, he attempted once more to reverse his
pro-KMT stance. This time, however, Sheng did not succeed. In the
autumn of 1944, Chongqing announced the replacement of Sheng, whom
Stalin no longer trusted, with one of Chiang Kai-shek’s closest advisors.42
This move not only ended Sheng’s autocracy in Uyghuristan but also marked
the re-establishment of direct central government control over China’s
far northwestern regions for the first time since 1911.

As its authority in the northwestern borderlands grew, the KMT
regime felt it necessary, in 1942-43, to begin its overdue state-building and
infrastructure development projects in Uyghuristan in an effort to further
consolidate its position there.43 High authorities in Chongqing also
39 CB, 09-1413, Chiang Kai-shek’s secret instructions concerning Chongqing’s negotiation
with Sheng Shicai, July 1942.
40 Forbes, Warlords and Muslims in Chinese Central Asia, pp. 157-162; Svat Soucek, A History
of Inner Asia (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), pp. 271-272.
41 See Keiji Furuya, Chiang Kai-shek: His Life and Times (New York: St John’s University,
1981), pp. 744-745.
42 Chen Huisheng and Chen Chao, Minguo Xinjiang Shi (A history of Republican
Xinjiang) (Urumqi: Xinjiang renmin chubanshe, 1999), pp. 376-382.
43 ASNDC, 003/2352, Supreme National Defense Council to the Executive Yuan
concerning developing the northwest, December 31 1942.
Nationalists, Muslim Warlords,
and the “Great Northwestern Development” in Pre-Communist China
131
believed it was imperative to encourage capable youth and intellectuals in
southwestern China to devote their energies in these “newly-acquired”
northwestern borderlands. In the midst of World War II, these officials
were busy traveling between Sichuan and the border provinces, where
they endeavored to work out better ways to bring these frontier
territories under tighter Nationalist administrative control.44 Meanwhile,
with the view to attract more Nationalist civil servants to the wartime
“Going Westward” campaign, the higher echelons of the financiallystringent
Nationalist regime worked hard to promulgate a series of new
regulations aimed at handsomely subsidizing those who were willing to
serve voluntarily inUyghuristan.45

It is interesting how, during the war, the Nationalist regime
attempted to depict the vast and sparsely populated Uyghuristan as a
“promised land” for a war-beleaguered China and its people. Faced with
possible overpopulation in southwestern China, Nationalist policy
designers thought it necessary to revive the old idea of resettling the
surplus Han Chinese inhabitants in Sichuan proper to the vast border
territories. In their official propaganda, as well as in governmentsponsored
publications, efforts were made to describe Uyghuristan as a virgin
land that could provide new settlers with space, natural resources and
new hopes.46 The Nationalists also sought to relate the “Going
Westward” movement to patriotism, asserting that going northwestward
to cultivate Uyghuristan would be assisting the government in their
strenuous effort to fight against the invading Japanese enemies. Leaders
in Chongqing particularly urged both the youth and the intellectuals in
Sichuan to contribute their knowledge and professional expertise to the
efforts underway on the northwestern frontier.47
44 Ze Ren, “Lun Bianjiang Gongzuo zhi Zhanwang” (On the prospect of frontier
dealings), Bianzheng Gonglun (Frontier Affairs) (Chongqing) 3, 12 (December 1944), pp. 1-3;
Jin Shaoxiang, “Guomindang Fandong Shili Jinru he Tongzhi Xinjiang” (The entry of
KMT anti-revolutionary influence into Xinjiang and its governance in this province), in
Xinjiang Wenshi Ziliao Xuanji (Selections of Xinjiang literary and historical materials), 2
(1979), pp. 18-73.
45 ASNDC, 003/1763, “Guidelines for the youth and personnel affairs on the frontiers”,
enclosed in the Military Affairs Commission to the Supreme National Defense Council,
September 3 1941; 004/114, “Regulations concerning provisions of the staff working on the
frontiers”, enclosed in the Military Affairs Commission to the Supreme National Defense
Council, April 25 1944.
46 See: “Guidelines for the KMT frontier affairs”, Zhongyang Dangwu Gongbao 4, 19
(September 1942), pp.23-24; Zhao Minqiu, Yuejin zhong di Xibei (The leaping Northwest)
(Chongqing: The New Chinese Culture, 1940).
47 Chiang Kai-shek, “Kaifa Xibei di Fangzhen” (Guiding principles for the development
of the Northwest), in Qin ed., Zongtong Jianggong Sixiang Yanlun Zongji 19, pp. 169-181; Zhu
Jiahua (Head of the KMT Organizational Department), “Frontier issues and frontier
works”, Zhongyang Zhoubao 5, 19 (December 17, 1942), pp. 26-32.
Hsiao-ting Lin
132

Nationalist China’s second “great northwestern development” wave
reached its peak in 1942-44, as the result of the wartime Nationalist
regime’s opportunistic advancement into China’s far western
borderlands. Yet in the meantime, there was no shortage of criticism
from both within China and abroad regarding this development project.
British diplomats in wartime China, for example, deemed the Chinese
attempt to industrialize and exploit natural resources in the northwest,
together with their effort to advertise their northwest-forward programs,
as yet another lever to solicit American financial and technical assistance
– not merely for the purpose of defending against Japan, but for possible
power struggles with the Chinese Communists and perhaps with Soviet
Russia. As a result, to Whitehall, northwestern China could eventually
turn out to be “another gold brick that the Chinese are trying to sell the
Americans.” Due to the poor technologies and financial resources, British
officials both in London and Chongqing were generally convinced that
there would be very little likelihood that the northwest would be well
developed both during and after the war.48

Despite these negative assessments, in retrospect it is fair to argue
that the Nationalists had achieved at least partial success. In early 1943,
Chongqing launched a large-scale land settlement project in the Eastern
Turkestan/Uyghuristan . More than 20,000 Han Chinese, most of who were
refugees, ex-soldiers and unemployed persons from Henan, Shanxi and
Shaanxi Provinces, were moved to Hami and Turfan to take part in
reclamation work.49 A series of economic and colonization projects were
also created, aimed at both relieving overpopulation in unoccupied
southwestern China, and strengthening Nationalist administrative
control in these frontier regions. One notable example at this was the
demarcation of several military colonization zones in Easternturkestan/Uyghuristan ,
the Gansu Corridor, Ningxia and Qinghai to accommodate the new Han
immigrants from China proper. These immigrants were given the tasks
of road construction, irrigation, forestry and land reclamation. For the
sake of supervising the refugees and colonization projects, officials were
duly dispatched from Chongqing, and the result was a reinforcement of
Nationalist influence in these border areas.50

48 WO 208/408, “China: Political and General Conditions in Kansu [Gansu] and
Chinghai [Qinghai] Provinces”, M.I.6. Political Report, dated June 28 1943.
49 ASNDC, 003/2352, Supreme National Defense Council to the Executive Yuan
concerning the removal of refugees from Henan, Shanxi and Shaanxi Provinces,
December 31 1942; 003/2361, Executive Yuan to the Supreme National Defense Council,
February 22 1943.
50 ASNDC, 003/2359, Supreme National Defense Council to the Executive Yuan,
December 30 1942; Report of the Executive Yuan concerning the execution of immigration
and colonization projects in the border provinces, May 7 1943; T.V. Soong Papers, Hoover
Institution Archives, Stanford University, Box 25, “Blueprint for the construction of the
Nationalists, Muslim Warlords,
and the “Great Northwestern Development” in Pre-Communist China
133
The Nationalist regime also encouraged its party members, public
servants and young intellectuals in southwestern China to serve in the
border provinces. According to one statistical report, by mid-1943 there
were at least 7,200 new KMT party cadres relocating to Uyghuristan, where
they were employed in the KMT’s recently instituted organs there. In
expectation of more people moving to serve in these border provinces, the
Nationalist center promulgated new codes and regulations so as to
facilitate this trend. Training courses were set up in Chongqing for public
servants who were sent to work and live in Estturkestan/Uyghuristan .51 In addition,
Nationalist ministerial officials were busy flying between Sichuan proper
and outlying provinces to conduct their inspections that would surely
help elevate the prestige of the Nationalist regime. Between 1942 and 1943,
visits by top officials from Chongqing to the Northwest were so frequent
that General Zhu Shaoliang, Commander of the Nationalist 8th War
Zone, who was headquartered in Lanzhou and responsible for the
security of these dignitaries, was obliged to complain to Chiang Kai-shek
about his new and unexpected burden.52


Epilogue

By the end of the Sino-Japanese war in the summer of 1945, most of the
vast northwestern region of China was under the Nationalists’ relatively
effective control. The exception to this, was the northern half of
Uyghuristan, where the independent regime of the Eastern Turkestan Republic
was established.53 The Gansu and Uyghuristan provinces were both ruled by
Chiang Kai-shek’s closest and trusted officials. Although officially
Qinghai and Ningxia continued to be governed by the Ma Muslim
Northwest for the fiscal year 1943”, proposed by the Central Planning Bureau, November 1
1942.
51 Academia Historica, Archives of the Nationalist Government, 0128.12/3611.01-02,
“Statutes concerning public servants in the frontier”, May 18 1943. When addressing those
who would be serving in Xinjiang, Chiang Kai-shek particularly emphasized that they
should avoid clashes with Sheng Shicai’s staff, and should pay full respect to local
minority peoples. See: Chiang, “Dui Paifu Xinjiang Gongzuo Tongzhi zhi Zhishi”
(Instructions to the party cadres dispatched to Xinjiang), in Qin ed., Zongtong Jianggong
Sixiang Yanlun Zongji 19, p. 403.
52 ASNDC, 003/2439, KMT Central Executive Committee to Supreme National Defense
Council, March 19 1943.
53 Rebellion against Nationalist administration in northern Xinjiang began in fall of 1944,
and by spring and summer of 1945 the East Turkestan Republic, with strong Soviet
support, controlled territories north of Tianshan. Deals at Moscow in the summer of 1945
between Chiang Kai-shek and Stalin allowed for an uneasy compromise that put a
coalition of KMT Nationalists and East Turkestan Republic elements led by Nationalist
General Zhang Zhizhong in charge of Xinjiang provincial government. See: David Wang,
Clouds Over Tianshan: Essays on Social Disturbance in Xinjiang in the 1940s (Copenhagen:
NIAS, 1999), and Linda Benson, The Ili Rebellion: The Moslem Challenge to Chinese Authority
in Xinjiang, 1944-1949 (New York: M.E. Sharpe, 1990).
Hsiao-ting Lin
134


chairmen, Nationalist-directed institutions were omnipresent in these
two provinces. The financial and economic strength of the Nationalist
regime in northwest China grew to the extent that it was able to establish
customs offices in various districts of both northern and Uyghuristan. The Nationalists sought direct domination over revenues and
commerce in the province, a policy that would have been completely
unrealistic prior to the war. It was scheduled, according to KMT postwar
policy planners, to set up a customs office at Urumqi, with branch
stations at Shara Sume (Altai), Chuguchak, Kulja, Turfan and Kashgar.

By so doing, the Nationalist regime would be able to gradually control
trades and revenues between Uyghuristan and Soviet Russia, Outer
Mongolia (Mongolian People’s Republic) and British India.54
In hindsight, the war with Japan had provided the Chinese
Nationalists with an unexpected opportunity to assert their authority in
China’s far, Muslim-dominated Central Asian borderlands, where KMT
authority barely existed prior to the war. By late 1944, in the oasis city of
Tashkurghan, on the Sino-Pamir border, all of the principal officials,
including the magistrate, the police chief, the head of customs and the
head of the postal office, were appointed directly from Chongqing.55 By
the summer of 1945, at least three Nationalist army divisions had been
stationed at the remote Misgar Pass, overlooking Kashmir. The
Nationalist presence grew to such an extent that shortly after the war,
the exhausted British Indian authorities began to complain that the
Nationalist-dominated provincial authorities in Urumqi were now in a
position to monopolize trade between India and Uyghuristan.56

The consequence of the Nationalist regime’s northwestward
advancement was far-reaching. Suffice it to say that the Nationalists’
political, military and financial influence, and the infrastructure they had
gradually built up during the war, ironically paved the way for
Communist control of the northwest. In Uyghuristan/Xinjiang in particular,
Nationalist military personnel played a crucial role in smoothing the
transition to Communism. In 1949, Nationalist generals Tao Zhiyue and
Zhao Xiguang, who at this critical moment were still commanding more
than 80,000 well-equipped Nationalist troops inUyghuristan, finally decided
54 See: Oriental and India Office Collections (OIOC), British Library (London),
L/P&S/2406, British Consulate at Urumqi to the British Embassy (Chongqing), January
13 1944; Mr. Ting Guitang (Deputy Inspector-General of Chinese Customs at Urumqi) to
the British Consulate at Urumqi, February 12 1944.
55 OIOC, L/P&S/12/2407, Travel reports by K. P. S. Menon (Indian Agent-General to
China) to the Government of India, October 25, December 19 and 29 1944.
56 OIOC, L/P&S/12/2407, Report of Mr. Etherington-Smith (British Consul-General at
Kashgar), enclosed in the British Embassy in China to the Government of India, August
23, 1945; L/P&S/12/2405, British Consulate in Urumqi to the British Embassy in China,
September 2 1945.
Nationalists, Muslim Warlords,
and the “Great Northwestern Development” in Pre-Communist China
135
to join the Chinese Communists.57 Without this shift in political
allegiance made by the established Han Chinese , the Communist
takeover in Chinese Türkistan would have been much more difficult,
and in all likelihood, much more violent. How well the new Beijingbased
government consolidated its power in northwestern China is still
being debated.

Since the early 1930s, faced with the Japanese military encroachment
from the east, the population in China proper had been enthusiastic about
developing the northwest. The Nationalist regime also thought it
imperative to transform the vast northwestern Chinese borderland into
its new power base. After the outbreak of war with Japan, the
Nationalists chose Sichuan in the southwest as their wartime base.
Nevertheless, northwestern China continued to serve as the Nationalists’
development priority. Throughout the Chinese Nationalists’ two decade
long reign in China, the idea of “northwestern advancement” was always
a part of its political strategy, party agenda and official repertoire. Yet,
undeniably, as this research has shown, the Chinese Nationalists’
approach toward this end was largely opportunistic, mixed with the right
timing, political compromises, and military maneuvering.

57 Wang Fen, “Zouxiang Guangmin—Huiyi Zhao Xiguang Shuaibu Qiyi Qianhou”
(Heading for the brightness—A remembrance of Zhao Xiguang’s leading troops to revolt),
in Xinjiang Wenshi Ziliao Xuanji, Vol. 3 (1998), pp. 109-115; Fang Yingkai, “Mianhuai
Zhao Xiguang Jiangjun” (In memory of General Zhao Xiguang), in Kashi Wenshi Ziliao
(Kashgar literary and historical materials), Vol. 5 (1990), pp. 61-74.

China and Eurasia Forum Quarterly, Volume 5, No. 1 (2007) p. 115-135
© Central Asia-Caucasus Institute & Silk Road Studies Program
ISSN: 1653-4212

From:http://www.silkroadstudies.org/new/docs/CEF/Quarterly/February_2007/Lin.pdf