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2001a7e3coverv05b.jpg

Modern Chinas Ethnic Frontiers

The purpose of this book is to examine the strategies and practices of the Han Chinese Nationalists vis- -vis post- Qing dynasty Chinas ethnic minorities, as well as to explore the role they played in the formation of contemporary Chinas Central Asian frontier territoriality and border security. The Chinese Revolution of 1911, initiated by Sun Yat- sen, liberated the Han Chinese from the rule of the Manchus and ended the Qing dynastic order that had existed for centuries. With the collapse of the Qing dynasty, the Mongols and the Tibetans, who had been dominated by the Manchus, took advantage of the revolution and declared their independence. Under the leadership of Yuan Shikai, the new Chinese Republican government in Peking in turn proclaimed the similar five- nationality Republic proposed by the Revolutionaries as a model with which to sustain the deteriorating Qing territorial order. The shifting politics of the multi- ethnic state during the regime transition and the role those politics played in defining the identity of the modern Chinese state were issues that would haunt the new Chinese Republic from its inception to its downfall. Modern Chinas Ethnic Frontiers will be of interest to students and scholars of Chinese history, Asian history, and modern history.

Hsiao- ting Lin is a Research Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford Univer-sity, US.

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Modern Chinas Ethnic FrontiersA journey to the west

Hsiao- ting Lin

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First published 2011 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN

Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge 270 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016

Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

2011 Hsiao- ting Lin

The right of Hsiao-ting Lin to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patent Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Lin, Hsiao-ting.Modern Chinas ethnic frontiers: a journey to the west / Hsiao-ting Lin.p. cm.Includes bibliographical references and index.1. MinoritiesChina, NorthwestHistory20th century. 2. MinoritiesGovernment policyChina, NorthwestHistory20th century. 3. China, NorthwestEthnic relationsHistory. 4. ChinaHistoryRepublic, 19121949. 5. ChinaBoundariesAsia, Central. I. Title. DS730.L5475 2010305.80095196dc22

2010007403

ISBN13: 978-0-415-58264-3 (hbk) ISBN13: 978-0-203-84497-7 (ebk)

This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2010.

To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledgescollection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.

ISBN 0-203-84497-1 Master e-book ISBN

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Contents

List of illustrations x Preface xii Acknowledgments xv List of acronyms and abbreviations xvii Prologue xxi

1 Early years and early strategies 1

2 Frontier politics in metropolitan China 17

3 In search of a new territorial base 34

4 War and new frontier designs 54

5 War and opportunities 73

6 Reconfiguring ethnic frontier territoriality 93

Epilogue 113 Glossary of names and terms 124 Notes 129 Bibliography 169 Index 186

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Illustrations

Figures2.1 The closing ceremony of the Mongolian Affairs Conference,

June 1930 222.2 The Panchen Lama receiving his devout followers in Qinghai,

c.1937 302.3 Inner Mongols prostrated in front of the Panchen Lamas field

headquarters at Bailingmiao, c.1933 302.4 The first batch of ethnic minority students from Xinjiang to

study in Nanking, c.1934 323.1 Luo Wengan met with the newly reformed Xinjiang

provincial leaders in Urumqi, September 1933 423.2 The welcome ceremony held at Ili by Zhang Peiyuan for

Luo Wengan, September 1933 423.3 Huang Shaohong meeting with Inner Mongol nobles at

Bailingmiao as an effort to prevent the Mongols from tilting toward Japan, November 1933 44

3.4 T.V. Soong in Xian, where he was greeted by Shaanxi Governor Yang Hucheng and a group of local citizens, April 1934 46

3.5 T.V. Soong visited a mosque in Xining, Qinghai, May 1934 473.6 Bailingmiao, c.1933, the base of the Inner Mongolian

Autonomous Movement in the 1930s 484.1 Prince Demchugdongrob (De Wang) reviewing his military

band at Kalgan, where the Japanese- sponsored Mongolian Federated Autonomous Government was headquartered, c.1938 55

4.2 Sheng Shicai, the Soviet Consul- General in Urumqi Garegin Apresov, and Nationalist Minister of Education Chen Lifu in Urumqi, October 1937 57

4.3 The Labrang Tibetans in Chongqing, where they were treated with great pomp and courtesy, February 1940 62

4.4 Anti- Japanese Muslim guerrillas in Northwest China, c.1939 66

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Illustrations xi

5.1 The KMT party headquarters holding its political activities in Urumqi, c.1942 74

5.2 A street view of Wuwei, an important oasis in Gansu Corridor, before Chiang Kai- sheks inspection, August 1942 77

5.3 Chiang Kai- shek met with Ma Bufang and Ma Buqing at his temporary residence in Xining, August 1942 78

5.4 Chiang Kai- shek, Ma Hongkui and Ma Hongbin in Ningxia, August 1942 79

5.5 British Consulate General at Kashgar 89

MapsMap 1 Nationalist China in the 1930s xixMap 2 Chinas western frontiers xx

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Preface

Modern Chinas Ethnic Frontiers: A Journey to the West is meant to be a com-panion to my earlier book, Tibet and Nationalist Chinas Frontier: Intrigues and Ethnopolitics, 192849. In my first book, I examined Chinas policy toward Tibet during the Nationalist era (192849). I argued that modern Chinas Tibetan frontier was neither the subject of concerted aggression by a centralized and indoctrinated Chinese Nationalist government, nor of an ideologically driven nationalist ethnopolitics. Instead, modern Chinas sovereignty claim over Tibet was much more the result of rhetorical grandstanding by the Nationalists than a definite plan to exert direct control over the region. My first book also delineates how, during the divisive and chaotic Nationalist period, Chinese ethnic territori-ality continued to change from a traditional empire to a modern nation- state, often in unexpected and inadvertent ways. This book further undertakes an important enquiry into the making of modern Chinas frontier territoriality and the nature of Nationalist ethnic frontiers from a fresh and broader perspective. It was stimulated, to a large extent, by a reviewer of Tibet and Nationalist Chinas Frontier who remarked that I should further stretch the focus from Tibet to modern Chinas other Inner Asian ethnic border-lands that were inherited from the Qing imperial house and the Peking- based Republican government by the originally localized, power- restrained Chinese Nationalist regime. In conclusion, this review article strongly suggested I re- examine the nature of the Nationalist frontier and ethnic politics as well as its impact on the formation of post- 1949 contemporary Chinas border security and ethnic territoriality. To a considerable degree, this new research is also stimulated by a series of political unrests in Chinas ethnic frontiers in recent years. One still remembers the ethnic minorities anti- government riots in Lhasa and Khotan before the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games, the abortive attempt by the Muslim Uighurs to crash a domestic airplane flying between Urumqi and Beijing around the same time, and the UighurHan ethnic confrontations in Urumqi and other oasis cities in Xin-jiang in 2009. These incidents strongly indicate that governing Chinas far- flung ethnic borderlands has been, and will continue to be, a haunting challenge to the leaders of the Peoples Republic of China. Modern Chinas Ethnic Frontiers is therefore both an extension to my previous book and a response to a timely and

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Preface xiii

important research topic which has been, and continues to be, one of present- day Chinas most pressing issues. There has been an explosion of history- writing in the recent decade. Volumes exploring modern Chinese ethnic frontiers and minority histories of varying geo-graphical scope and subject matters are to be found on the shelves of bookshops everywhere, together with histories of every other time and place. With little doubt, the issues relating to Chinas complicated ethnicity and ethnopolitics, from the Qing imperial period to the early Peoples Republic, have become a trendy focus in recent scholarships. Among recent literature, some are intended for an academic audience, some cover only limited periods of time and space, some focus on particular non- Han ethnic characters, and still some are based entirely on Western or secondary Chinese sources. In this book my purpose has been to try to provide for both specialists and general readers, a concise, overall picture of modern Chinas frontier and ethnic politics from the late Qing of the 1900s to the Peoples Republic in the early 1950s, during which period the Han- Chinese Nationalists were the main players of post- imperial Chinas politics. My aim has been to counter the over- simplified and stereotyped notion that, when it comes to ethnic territorial disposition, the Nationalists and their regime, indoc-trinated under the leadership of Sun Yat- sen and Chiang Kai- shek, were revolu-tionary and ideologically oriented, and had perennially resorted to nationalism to restore post- Qing Chinas sovereignty over frontier territories and ethnic peoples. I would say that it is not the intention of this book to focus on a specific inci-dent or event as a case study to demonstrate how the Nationalists dealt with Chinas ethnic- frontier issues according to the aforementioned assumption. Rather, I try to illuminate what best characterizes modern Chinas ethnic fron-tiers and politics. By providing a broad and clear view of how modern Chinas ethnic frontiers and orders has slowly evolved, this research elucidates the main factors leading to the Nationalist presence in the defunct Qing Empires territo-rial reaches in western frontiers, where the post- 1949 Chinese Communists sub-stantiated their authority within a relatively short span of time. To a large extent, this process of Nationalist power stretch into non- Han ethnic peripheries was closely related to how the modern Chinese state was defined or re- defined, and how post- imperial Chinese ethnic frontier politics was exploited by the National-ists as a way to fulfill their goals of state- building and regime consolidation. This book is perhaps one of the very first English- language studies to provide a comprehensive survey of the development and evolution of Chinese National-ist frontier and ethnopolitical practice. I hope it will fill an important lacuna in the historical scholarship on modern China which has tended to focus on the frontier ethnopolitics of the Qing Empire and the Chinese Communists while missing the important bridging role played by the Chinese Nationalists and their regime. This research has benefited substantially from the release of new modern Chinese source materials in recent years. With the availability of Nationalist Chinese official documents, private papers and diaries of top Nationalist leaders

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xiv Preface

like Chiang Kai- shek and T.V. Soong, a reassessment of modern Chinas history has not only become a possibility, but also a necessity. Having access to these new materials not only helps us obtain a more balanced perception toward the Nationalists and the Chinese politics of their time, but also allows us to realize how these leaders conceptualized a China which they endeavored to administer. Without a doubt, one important, thorny, and yet unavoidable agenda confronting these Nationalist leaders was post- imperial Chinas ethnic frontier and minority issues, and Chinas transformation from a multi- ethnic empire to a nation- state that had brought about these issues. In short, this book scrutinizes practices and policy- choices of Nationalist Chinas frontier territorial agenda. Readers may discover that I have sought to de- construct and de- ideologize the Nationalists strategies to substantiate their authority in peripheral China, and tried to demonstrate that the making of modern Chinas central authority in the Inner Asian frontiers was closely related to the external and domestic factors that had threatened the security and survival of the originally localized Nationalist regime. Seeing this historical phenomenon as a display of opportunistic nationalism or pragmatic nationalism on Chinas ethnic frontiers, I argue that this power- furtherance process in Chinas traditional peripheries was more the result of political reluctance, incidentals, and inevitability on the part of the Nationalists than the deliberately orchestrated ethnopolitics predominated by their revolutionary ideologies. The rationale behind this process, as I will show in this book, was mainly regime survival and security. The exploration of this topic, I hope, will offer a sweeping reappraisal of modern Chinese nationalism in the context of the central regimes opportunis-tic and pragmatic practices to cope with complex and delicate ethnic territorial issues. It is also my wish that readers will find this work exciting, discovering that what emerges from it is a new understanding of the Nationalists flexibility and strategic policy toward Chinas far- flung ethnic frontiers. Concerning the Romanization of this work, most of the Chinese personal and place names are given in pinyin. Because of their familiarity to readers, however, some historical Wade- Giles names, such as Sun Yat- sen, Chiang Kai- shek, Nanking, and Peking, are retained.

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Acknowledgments

My greatest debt of gratitude is first reserved for my colleagues at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University. Director John Raisian has endeavored to make Hoover a highly stimulating place for academic pursuit and excellence. This research could not have been done without his wise and capable leadership. I owe a great deal of appreciation to Richard Sousa, senior associate director and director of the Hoover Library and Archives, who renders tremendous support and encouragement both to my research and curatorial work. Deputy Director David Brady always has a caring heart to my research work, providing me with fresh insights into issues both within and outside the China study field. Ramon Myers and Tai- chun Kuo, my mentors, colleagues, and friends, who first brought me to Hoover and opened a new door for my academic pursuit on the other end of the Atlantic. My deep thanks also go to Bradley Bauer, Linda Bernard, Larry Diamond, Claudia Hubbard, Stephen Langlois, Carol Leadenham, Lea Lim-genco, Mandy MacCalla, Jorge Machado, Lisa Miller, Lisa H. Nguyen, William Ratliff, Anatol Shmelev, Maciej Siekierski, Nicholas Siekierski, Shirley Soong, Celeste Szeto, Issayas Tesfamariam, Paul Thomas, Deborah Ventura, E. Ann Wood, and Jialin Zhang, for their intellectual partnership, company, and friendship. The manuscript has been read, in whole or in part, by the following scholars. I want to express my deepest appreciation for their insightful comments, criti-cism and suggestions: Chi Hsi- sheng, Federica Ferlanti, Kobayashi Ryosuke, James Leibold, Laura J. Newby, So Wai Chor, Paul H. Tai, and Peter Chen- main Wang. Of the many others whose myriad assistance is discernible in my book, I would like to mention the following by name: Brad Burge, Cindy Chan, Ming K. Chan, Chang Chi- hsiung, Chang Jui- te, Chang Li, Chen Yung- fa, Chu Hung- yuan, Amy B. Desai, Duan Ruicong, Emily Hill, Ho Szu- yin, Max Ko- wu Huang, Huang Tzu- chin, Huang Wende, Edward Ingram, Kawashima Shin, Li Yu- chuan, Lin Hsin- yi, Liu Wei- kai, Lu Fang- shang, Luo Min, Ma Zhendu, Abbas Milani, Rana Mitter, Thomas Mullaney, Shih Chih- yu, Michael Sullivan, Tang Chi- hua, Yangdhon, Yoshida Toyoko, Yudru Tsomu, Hans J. Van de Ven, Wang Hsien- chun, Wang Wen- lung, Wu Che, Wu Jingping, Wu Sufeng, Yang Tianshi, Yiu Yi- wen, and Eric Chen- hua Yu. Special thanks also go to Francois and Charlotte de Blois of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland,

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xvi Acknowledgments

for their encouragement and assistance during my research. Any errors and flaws, of course, are entirely my own. Several of these chapters have been read in some preliminary form at confer-ences and workshops, and I am grateful to the following hosts for the opportun-ity for discussion and debate: Chinese Institute, Oxford University; Institute of Modern History, Academia Sinica (Taiwan); Institute of Modern History, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (Beijing); and the History Departments at National Chengchi University, Tunghai University, and Fu Jen Catholic Univer-sity in Taiwan. Portions of Chapter 6 and the Epilogue first appeared in a differ-ent form as From Rimland to Heartland: Nationalist Chinas Geopolitics and Ethnopolitics in Central Asia, 19371952 in International History Review, vol. 30, no. 1 (March 2008), pp. 5275. I acknowledge the journals permission to use these materials in my book with great gratitude. I want to express my deep appreciation to the staff at the Routledge, especially my acquisition editors Stephanie Rogers and Leanne Hinves, who went out of their way to help me prepare the manuscript for publication in an extraordinarily efficient fashion. My gratitude also goes to the two anonymous readers for their useful comments and suggestions. I am grateful to the Chiang Ching- Kuo Foundation for International Scholarly Exchange (United States), who generously awarded me a junior research grant to facilitate the completion of this book. I am also thankful to Michael Feng, Shao Minghuang, the Kuomintang Party Archives (Taiwan), and the Shanxi Peoples Press (China) for granting me permission to reproduce some photographs in this book. Finally, my greatest debt is to my family. To my parents Lin Wen- huei and Kuo Pei- hua, who, in addition to fostering me with their love and affection, guided me toward a life as an academic. To my wife Hai- lei; without her under-standing, companionship and love, this project could have never been accom-plished. To Ian and Ethan for their hugs, smiles and kisses; my life has been fondly enriched because of them.

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Acronyms and abbreviations

AAH Guoshiguan Dangan (Archives of the Academia Historica)AKMT Guomindang Dangshihui Dangan (Archives of the Kuomintang

Historical Committee)AMFA- 1 Waijiaobu Dangan (Archives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs;

deposited in the Academia Historica, Taipei)AMFA- 2 Waijiaobu Dangan (Archives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs;

deposited in the Institute of Modern History Archives, Academia Sinica, Taipei)

ANG Guomin Zhengfu Dangan (Archives of the Nationalist government)ASNDC Guofang Zuigao Weiyuanhui Dangan (Archives of the Supreme

National Defense Council)CB Jiang Zhongzheng Zongtong Dangan: Choubi (President Chiang

Kai- shek Collections: Plans and Directives)CKSD Chiang Kai- shek Diaries (Hoover Institution Archives, Stanford

University, California)FO Foreign Office (United Kingdom)FRUS Foreign Relations of the United States: Diplomatic PapersGW/BW Jiang Zhongzheng Zongtong Dangan: Geming Wenxian/Kanluan

Shiqi/Zhengzhi- Bianwu (President Chiang Kai- shek Collections: Revolutionary documents/Rebellion suppressing/Politics: Frontier Affairs)

GW/DZ Jiang Zhongzheng Zongtong Dangan: Geming Wenxian/Kangzhan Fanlue: Dihou Zuozhan (President Chiang Kai- shek Collections: Revolutionary documents/General plans for the War of Resistance: Operations behind the Enemy Lines)

GW/ZJ Jiang Zhongzheng Zongtong Dangan: Geming Wenxian/Kangzhan Fanlue: Zhengjun (President Chiang Kai- shek Collections: Revolu-tionary documents/General plans for the War of Resistance: Con-solidation of the Army)

KMT Kuomintang (Nationalist Party)MTAC Mongolian and Tibetan Affairs Commission (the Nationalist gov-

ernment)OIOC Oriental and India Office Collections (United Kingdom)

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xviii Acronyms and abbreviations

PRC Peoples Republic of ChinaSNDC Supreme National Defense Council (the Nationalist government)TD/JMBZ Jiang Zhongzheng Zongtong Dangan: Tejiao Dangan/Junshi/

Jin- Ma ji Bianqu Zuozhan (Specially submitted archives/Military/Operations in Kinmen, Matsu, and Border Regions)

TD/MB Jiang Zhongzheng Zongtong Dangan: Tejiao Dangan/Zhengzhi/Menggu Bianqing (President Chiang Kai- shek Collections: Spe-cially submitted archives/Politics/Mongolian Border Situation)

TD/YB Jiang Zhongzheng Zongtong Dangan: Tejiao Dangan/Zhengzhi/Yiban Bianzheng (President Chiang Kai- shek Collections: Specially submitted archives/Politics/General Frontier Politics)

TD/XW Jiang Zhongzheng Zongtong Dangan: Tejiao Dangan/Zhengzhi/Xizang Wenti (President Chiang Kai- shek Collections: Specially submitted archives/Politics/Tibetan Issues)

TD/XinW Jiang Zhongzheng Zongtong Dangan: Tejiao Dangan/Zhengzhi/Xinjiang Wenti (President Chiang Kai- shek Collections: Specially submitted archives/Politics/Xinjiang Issues)

TW Jiang Zhongzheng Zongtong Dangan: Tejiao Wendian/Lingxiu Shigong/Jiji Zhibian (President Chiang Kai- shek Collections: Spe-cially submitted dispatches/Leaders Deeds/Frontier Endeavors)

USDS Records of the Department of State relating to Internal Affairs of China (microfilm series)

USFR United States National Archives, State Department ArchivesUSMIR United States Military Intelligence Report, China, 19111941

(microfilm)Waijiaobu Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Nationalist government)WO War Office records (United Kingdom)YXSP Yan Xishan Dangan (Yan Xishan papers)YXZG Yuan Yilai Xizang Difang yu Zhongyang Zhengfu Guanxi Dangan

Shiliao Huibian (collection of historical materials from the archives on the relationship between the Tibetan area and the central govern-ment since the Yuan)

ZJSYZ Zongtong Jianggong Sixiang Yanlun Zongji (General collections of President Chiang Kai- sheks thoughts and speeches)

ZMDZH Zhonghua Minguoshi Dangan Ziliao Huibian (compendium of his-torical materials on the Republic of China)

ZZSC Zhonghua Minguo Zhongyao Shiliao ChubianDui Ri Kangzhan Shiqi (First selection of historical materials on the Republic of China the period of the war against Japan)

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Map 1 Nationalist China in the 1930s.

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Map 2 Chinas western frontiers.

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Prologue

On February 29, 1952, Chiang Kai- shek received a top- secret proposal. A few weeks before, Taipei had received a confidential report from Nationalist spies in Communist- controlled China reporting that they had established contacts with a number of influential ethnic minority leaders along Chinas Central Asian border regions. According to the report, these ethnic minority leaders shared Chiangs animosity towards the Chinese Communists and wished to reestablish the amic-able relationship they had shared with the Nationalists before 1949. The leaders were prepared to join forces with the Taiwan- based Nationalist regime and launch a guerilla war against the Communists on the mainland. Those who were willing to cooperate included Huang Zhengqing, the former leader of the Labrang Tibetans in southern Gansu; Ma Yuanxiang, a Tungan Muslim general with blood ties to the renowned Ma Muslim family in Chinese Central Asia; Pal-gonchrinle, a Golok native- chieftain (tusi) from the SichuanQinghai border; and Su Yonghe, a Khampa native- chieftain from Nagchuka on the QinghaiTibetan border. According to Nationalist intelligence reports, these leaders alto-gether commanded about 80,000 irregulars. Once well armed and equipped, Taipei estimated that the new force would establish a base of military operations in Chinas western borderlands, thus facilitating what Taipei expected would be a protracted war against the Communists. Chiangs military advisors were con-vinced that these new military resources, although scattered and still ill- trained, would be of considerable value to their effort to recapture the Chinese mainland, and therefore convinced Chiang to accept the minority leaders support.1 This acceptance was by no means an isolated event, as the exiled Nationalists continued to accept and even to seek out the aid of ethnic minority groups. By mid- 1952, two and a half years after their retreat to the island of Taiwan, Chiang Kai- shek and his Nationalist remnants were still optimistic about the possibility of a renewed military effort that would carry them back to the Chinese mainland. With the outbreak of the Korean War in June 1950, the Nationalists took advant-age of the rapidly changing international scenario in East Asia to urge the Truman administration to render more military and diplomatic support so as to transform Taiwan into a solid anti- Communist base. After the US Seventh Fleet arrived in the Taiwan Strait in the summer of 1950, thus securing their position on the island, the Nationalists actively and energetically tried to revitalize their

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xxii Prologue

former connections with non- Han ethnic minority leaders in Chinas Central Asian borderlands, whose forces continued to be a major target of the Chinese Communists.2 By 1952, with coastal China now under total Communist control, the far- flung ethnic borderlands in the west and its large minority population became central to the island- based Nationalists plan to solicit local support and establish military bases against the entrenched Communists. It was within this strategic and political framework that in May 1952 Chi-angs secret agents contacted Ma Liang, who commanded 2,000 guerrillas on the GansuQinghai border. Ma, a distant relative of Ma Bufang, the former Nation-alist governor of Qinghai, willingly accepted his appointment as commander- in-chief of the 103rd Route of the Nationalist Army. He sent his confidants to Nagchuka, where they awaited airdrops from the CIA- operated Western Enter-prises, Inc. containing munitions, wireless radio equipment, and 150 taels of gold bars. This secret operation was conducted as part of Taipeis broader goals, which also included the recruitment of several reputed Tibetan Buddhist prelates who had fled to Taiwan following the Communist takeover in 1949. The new allies, including the Janggiya Hutuktu and the Kanjurwa Hutuktu, were asked to generate propaganda intended to encourage their erstwhile ethnic minority fol-lowers in Inner Mongolia, Qinghai and Xikang to rise against the Communists.3 In the first months of 1952, the Nationalists underground activities in Chinas western frontiers had become so effective that at one point the majority of intel-ligence information came from officials as high in the Communist hierarchy as Marshal Yang Yong, then the Communist chairman of Guizhou Province and commander of the Air Force in the Communist Southwest Military Region. Jeremy Browns new research has demonstrated that, in the early 1950s, Com-munist control over Guizhou remained extremely tenuous.4 In April 1952, as illuminated by recently declassified Chinese archival materials, Yang was approached by Nationalist secret agents and allegedly expressed his willingness to defect to Chiang Kai- shek. Yang surreptitiously accepted Taipeis titular appointment as commander- in-chief of the fictitious Southwestern Anti- Communist National Salvation Army. Yang also promised to act in coordination with Taipei once Nationalist forces had established a position in southwest China. In return for his cooperation, Yang requested that Chiang grant him the same venerable position as that of Communist veteran Marshal Liu Bocheng if the Nationalists returned to power in China.5 Browns research also indicates that, at this juncture, a force of 8,000 Nationalist guerrillas remained intact in the SichuanYunnanGuizhou border region, where they continued to receive instructions from Taipei.6

The Nationalists and modern Chinas ethnopoliticsIn the early 1950s, despite the Nationalists expulsion from the mainland as a result of the civil war, Nationalist influence in Chinas remote Central Asian frontiers persisted. By reviving its former ties with ethnic minority communities in Chinas western borderlands, the exiled Nationalist regime in Taiwan endeav-

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Prologue xxiii

ored to transform its sporadic and disparate political and military resources in the borderlands into a coherent force for pushing back the Communists. Despite the ultimate failure of the Nationalists to return to the mainland, their efforts to harness the social and military capital of Chinas ethnic minorities nevertheless give rise to deeper questions about modern Chinas frontier ethnopolitics and border security, an important research field that has attracted considerable schol-arly attention in recent years.7 Looking back upon the rise and fall of the Chinese Nationalists over the first half of the twentieth century, it is clear that to unify the vast and diverse Chinese territory was going to be a difficult journey for the Nationalists. Growing from a power- constrained localized regime in the mid- 1910s to a consolidated government in the mid- 1940s, the Nationalists managed to push their authority deep into the Central Asian territories. Here, the military, political, and ideological legacies left by the Nationalists when they fled the Communist juggernaut ultimately put them in a position to establish valuable bases of operation despite their exile. Among the questions begged by this short history are: How did the National-ists make their presence in Central Asia in a relatively short period of time? What were the strategies and circumstances that enabled the Nationalists to establish lasting military, political, and ideological legacies in Central Asia? In recent years, newly available Chinese historical source materials, especially the previously classified official documents and the personal diaries of Chiang Kai- shek, as well as the Kuomintang party archives, provide a solid base for answer-ing these uneasy questions and constructing, or reconstructing, a sober picture of Nationalist Chinese frontier ethnopolitics. Without first carefully interpreting various ethnic and frontier events using these recently declassified Chinese his-torical materials, any attempt to theorize or generalize Nationalist Chinas ethnic and frontier politics can only be deemed too superficial and immature. Thanks to new archival materials, now we learn that whether they were based in Canton (as in the 1920s), Nanking (from 192837 and again from 19469), Chongqing (from 193845), or in Taipei (after 1950), the Nationalists perenni-ally treated the security of their regime as their top priority. It has now become clear that Nationalist Chinas centrality of focus on regime security was funda-mentally linked to their outwardly uncompromising stance with respect to ethnic frontier and territorial issues. The following chapters are intended to illustrate that when the Nationalists were threatened, both from within and from without, Chinas expansive and diverse ethnic frontiers provided them with geographical as well as political room to maneuver. In other words, Nationalist Chinas ethno-politics and the extension of Nationalist authority into modern Chinas inner frontiers were not motivated merely by blind ideology; rather, they were linked to specific pragmatic concerns tied to considerations of regime consolidation and security. This book examines the strategies and practices of the Chinese Nationalists vis- -vis post- Qing Chinas ethnic minorities, as well as to explore the role they played in the formation of contemporary Chinas ethnic frontier territoriality and border security. The Chinese Revolution of 1911, initiated by Sun Yat- sen,

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xxiv Prologue

liberated the Han Chinese from the rule of the Manchus and ended the Qing imperial order that had existed for centuries. With the collapse of Qing rule, the Mongols and the Tibetans, who had been dominated by the Manchus, took advantage of the revolution and declared their independence. Under the leader-ship of Yuan Shikai, the new Chinese Republican government in Peking in turn proclaimed the similar five- nationality Republic proposed by the Revolution-aries as a model with which to sustain the deteriorating Qing territorial order. The shifting politics of the multi- ethnic state during the regime transition and the role those politics played in defining the identity of the modern Chinese state were issues that would haunt the new Chinese Republic from its inception to its downfall. The process of establishing modern Chinas frontier territoriality has deep roots going back to the Qing dynastys empire- building in the latter half of the nineteenth century as well as to the conquest- dominated eighteenth century, when the Manchus first established control over Central Asia.8 It was believed that the Manchu emperor embodied the universal value of the mandate of heaven and that it was his role to distribute its benefit to those below him. The Qing dynasty ruled neighboring territories through the tribute system, which can be described as a two- leveled Sinicized empire consisting of the directly- ruled China proper and the nominally ruled tributary states. The Manchu court directly succeeded the Sino- centric Ming Empire (13681644) in China proper, but like the Mongol Yuan (12791368) succeeded in achieving hegem-ony over Inner Asia, where they placed the Mongols, the Muslims (including the Uighurs and Kazakhs), and the Tibetans under the new category of vassals (fanbu). The defunct Ming dynastys six boards had been designed to exercise its direct rule over China proper and nominal rule over the tributary states, while the Court of Colonial Affairs (Lifanyuan) was established to regulate the vassals indirectly.9 As a result, the Manchus ruled the majority Han Chinese people in the relatively Sinicized China proper while controlling the Mongolian, Muslim and Tibetan vassals separately through the multi- leveled imperial leverages and mechanisms.10 Thus, the Qing dynasty was in reality a dual dynasty comprised of the Sinic empire and the steppe empire much like their Mongol predecessors. During Qing rule, national boundaries did not exist in expansive Central Asia, and the line between domestic and foreign issues was often blurred.11 However, in the modern era, this geopolitical ambiguity was gradually replaced by a hori-zontal world order constituted by plural and equal sovereign states. National boundaries were drawn throughout Asia, a change which put geographical limits on the extent of Chinese influence while at the same time reducing the global concept of China as a nebulous and powerful political force to one of a defined political entity at the same level as that of its neighbors. Understanding the sig-nificance of the changes, in the mid- 1880s the Qing court created the new prov-ince of Xinjiang in Central Asia both to prevent Western and Tsarist incursion and to reinforce its administration in the area. Under what they called the New Policy (xinzheng), the Manchus also opened up the Manchurian, Mongolian

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Prologue xxv

and KhamTibetan borderlands to Han migration, leading to the gradual Sinici-zation of the regions. In the last days of Qing rule, as the ailing court in Peking struggled to reorganize itself into a nation- state and to preserve its far- flung ter-ritories from the pressure of the Western horizontal state system, the essentially dual Manchu Empire was already falling into the hands of Han Chinese. Partly as a result of this new ethnic power balance, the Mongolian and Tibetan inde-pendence movements began even before the Qing imperial household officially abdicated in February 1912. The Chinese revolutionary movement was largely derived from the rise of a new consciousness of race (zhongzu) among the Han people as opposed to growing out of dissatisfaction with existing state apparatus or social organiza-tions.12 When Sun Yat- sen established the Revive China Society (Xingzhonghui) in 1894, one of his main purposes was to exclude the Manchus and to return China to the Han Chinese. Although Sun later denied that his goal was racial retaliation, nationalistic resentment, hostility, and revenge by the Han Chinese against the Manchus figured prominently in Suns revolutionary propaganda. There was no shortage of arguments by Suns early revolutionary adherents that the dying Qings New Policy was in fact only an attempt to prolong and rein-force the Manchu rule, thus justifying the right of the Han people to establish their own republic. As a corollary, the early Revolutionaries strongly advocated that the Han Chinese race or nationality, an imaginary identity based on nonexistent biological continuity, should be free from the imperial governance of the Manchu race. By establishing a new Han Chinese- based nation- state, the Qing world order would be toppled and the new Chinese nation- state would be able to participate in the Western state system.13 An interesting question awaiting further scholarly scrutiny remains: How could a Han- centered nationalism, initially defined in negative terms in opposi-tion to the Manchu race, justify retaining the former imperial territories in non- Han areas yet include the non- Han occupants of these territories within a Han- dominated state? James Millward argues that the Han Chinese, lacking the legitimacy enjoyed by the Qing, sought to justify maintenance of the former Qing borders on the basis of Western principles of nationalism, as they under-stood and adopted them.14 This is indeed an insightful observation. In retro-spect, however, it remains open to scrutiny whether the early Han Chinese Revolutionaries- turned-Nationalists ever seriously took into consideration the relationship between their new republic and the neighboring non- Han nationali-ties. Their lack of consensus, if not their ignorance, of a policy vis- -vis various ethnic minorities clearly suggested that the early Revolutionaries were primarily concerned about the HanManchu relations while paying little attention to the other ethnicities which had comprised the Qing imperial order. As this book will demonstrate, it was this lack of a broad ethnopolitical ideology and border policy that led the Nationalist regime to assume a far more pragmatic and survivalist stance toward Chinas ethnic and frontier issues throughout its governance. This is not to say, however, that the Nationalists did not harbor a grand, ideal-ized picture of post- Qing Chinas frontier territorial landscape. As can be

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xxvi Prologue

detected from various official statements throughout the Nationalist era, the imperial territorial legacy left by the Qing, along with idealistic and revolution-ary views about a great China image, continued to be felt in the Nationalist policy planning. The lack of political and military power, nonetheless, had largely prevented the trouble- ridden Nationalist regime from implementing an effective great frontier policy. As a result, as I will argue, Nationalist Chinas frontier ethnopolitics was like a pendulum that swung between idealism and pragmatism: during the time of political and military hardship, realism, survival-ist, and opportunism might best characterize the Nationalist governments dealing with its frontier ethnic politics. When Chinas international status was elevated as a result of its bitter war with Japan during World War II, the restora-tion of Chinas past territorial glory inevitably loomed large in the minds of the Nationalists. Judging from a historical perspective, the pendulum swing proposed here also took place between whether the threats to the Nationalist regime were foreign, particularly from the Japanese (193245), or were domestic, particularly from rival warlords (191128), allied warlords (192931), and the Chinese Com-munists (19469). As the following chapters will illuminate, the major time periods and the concurrent main threats posed to the Nationalist regime have led to different responses from Nationalist leaders regarding handling ethnic minori-ties, managing relations with authorities in border regions, or dealing with fron-tier territorial issues through various means, channels and strategies. These interrelated foreign and domestic threats, and how the Nationalists responded to them, demonstrate modern Chinas frontier characters in the interim period between 1911 and 1949, and beyond. Nationalist identity and authority began in geographically isolated regions far from the traditional center of Chinese power and early on, the Nationalists seemed to be driven by political and racial ideology; as a result it is both ironic and significant that the amorphous and yet pragmatic nature of modern Chinese ethnopolitics allowed the budding Nationalists to embrace an expedient and opportunistic approach to extend their authority into the formerly Qing inner frontier territories. In a broader historical context, the extension of Nationalist power into Chinas western frontiers represented a reassertion or return of Chinese control to Central Asia. More significantly, the westward expansion of the Nationalists also transformed post- Qing China from a primarily maritime economy rooted in East Asia to a continental one based on overland trade routes through Central Asia. The expansion, I shall add, was more than a continuity of Qing expansion into Central Asia, for the Nationalists brought with them all of the political apparatus of a twentieth- century party system to the region, a change whose political legacy would endure through the 1950s. Nevertheless, it should be noted that the consolidation of Nationalist power in Chinas western peripheries and the resultant return of modern Chinese central authority to the Central Asian borderland were not intended goals of Nationalist policymakers. Instead, Chinas internal turmoil in the 1920s and the early 1930s, its war with Japan in

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Prologue xxvii

the 1930s and the 1940s, and the Nationalist- Communist confrontation of the 1930s and again, from the mid- 1940s, were individually and collectively the most important factors driving the Nationalist thrust into Chinas far west. One unexpected result of this westward movement was Chinas diplomatic outreach to the Middle East as a springboard from which the Nationalists believed they might strengthen their diplomatic ties with the international world.

The frontier theory, border security, and strategyOwen Lattimores study of traditional Chinas relationship with the nomads of Inner Asia suggests that modern Chinas territorial expansion was the continua-tion of a much longer period of state- building on the part of the Nationalists. According to Lattimore, such expansion suggested the existence of a line of optimum conquest beyond which further expansion became counterproduc-tive.15 However, a careful study of the history of modern Chinas frontier- policy may suggest a different scenario from Lattimores. An analysis of the National-ists power extension westward into Central Asia reveals that it was primarily driven by threats to their regime security, both domestic and foreign. The defunct Qing dynastys imperial territorial legacies provided a convenient and yet dis-putable framework for the initially weak and localized Nationalists to extend the scope of their ethnopolitical strategy and further extend their power in the fron-tier zones.16 Time and again policy on the border has been internally constrained, or even driven back, and this fact has had real costs. Rather than being the results of the sorts of deep ecological and socio- economic forces that writers such as Lattimore have proposed as explanations, it appears many Chinese decisions about border policy have been determined by internal political rivalries and con-solidations, taking place both on the concrete level of factional struggle, and on the more abstract plane of politically- useful philosophical redefinition of such concepts as loyalty, patriotism, and the nation.17 The substantiation of Nationalist power, as I argue in this book, was largely based on the practicalities of regime survival. To a considerable extent, John P. LeDonnes theory of Russias imperial expansion between 1700 and 1917 pro-vides this research with a solid analytical framework. According to LeDonne, as the Russians advanced into the frontier zones, they sought to control the rela-tively rare locations in an otherwise indistinguishable landscape suited to the creation of power bases. Upon these, they built an administrative, political, and military infrastructure designed to consolidate their gains while they continued their advance into the great plain that kept inviting them. In their advance, the Russians applied an inclusive policy that reflected their confidence in their own strength and the certainty of their success. They not only made alliances with the most powerful men in the frontier zones, whose allegiance shifted along with the shift in the local balance of power, but also made them members of the ruling elite. In return, their collaborators propelled their advance.18 A close examination of the Nationalists movement westward into Central Asia bears some striking resemblances to the Russian advance into their Central

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xxviii Prologue

Asian frontiers. The Japanese invasion of China between 1937 and 1945 offered the Nationalists an unforeseen opportunity for state- building and frontier consol-idation: to extend Han Chinese dominance westwards in Central Asia. Even if the process represents the reassertion of control, China did not re- create the state of affairs under the Qing. The Nationalists, in their bid to reassert the sover-eignty of a formerly weak, now besieged, central government, brought a twentieth- century nationalist political party- state to Central Asia. The National-ists advance westward did not exemplify the imposition of paramount power by an imperial regime such as the Qing. Rather, the Nationalists under Chiang Kai- shek sought to assert authority over the local rulers along Chinas western fron-tier in an attempt to defend their regime from further Japanese encroachment. This westward expansion gradually shifted the balance of power between the Nationalists and local ethnic minority groups. Their style in reasserting their sovereignty nonetheless resembled an empire- builders dealings with its collaborators. The Nationalists movement westward into Central Asia during the Second Sino- Japanese War (193745) was the result of both external and domestic pres-sures. As will be discussed in Chapter 5, one unexpected result of the movement was Chinas diplomatic outreach to the Middle East, which the Nationalists hoped to turn into a springboard into the wider world. This development, with historical hindsight, might be interpreted as an alternative route for Nationalist China to world power. To apply LeDonnes theory again: China may have been seeking to advance from the coastal rimlands to the Central Asian heartland to the west, in the face of Japans temporarily successful bid to deprive China of access to its own coastal rimlands in the east. It remains unclear whether the Nationalists ever expected their control of Chinas western border territories to help them face down the Communists during the civil war of 19459. Neverthe-less, in the final stages of the war, Central Asia did provide them with a potential territorial base from which to resist.

Reconsidering Nationalist ethnopoliticsIn the past several decades, the field of modern Chinese ethnopolitics and fron-tier territoriality has more often been based on presumption than on reliable primary sources. The revolutionary ideology of the Chinese Nationalists espoused by Sun Yat- sen, Chiang Kai- shek, and their revolutionary associates, has long been central to scholarly discourse, causing many historians to argue that since the turn of the twentieth century the Chinese Nationalists had proac-tively and imperialistically attempted to bring Chinas traditional ethnic territ-ories and peoples under Nationalist control. Furthermore, surviving Nationalist propaganda has convinced many scholars that the Nationalists actively attempted to assimilate non- Han ethnic groups. This perspective has led historians of the Chinese Republican period as well as of the contemporary era to assume that the main goal of the Nationalist regime was to restore to Chinese control the frontier territories that had been lost through the ineptitude of the Qing dynasty.

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Parallel to this oversimplified and stereotyped view of the Nationalist frontier and ethnic minority policy is the perspective that the Chinese Nationalists intransigence with regards to dissident minorities pleas for autonomy repre-sented an unwillingness to follow through on their early promises of equality and self- determination. Frederick C. Teiwess work is representative of such a generalization. Teiwes depicts a Chinese Nationalist Party (Kuomintang, KMT) that, influenced by Western concepts of nationalism, took a much more assimila-tionist approach in that it refused to grant autonomy to minority groups; however, the political weakness of the regime forced it to make compromises which resulted in policies that alienated ethnic minorities without assimilating them.19 On the other hand, in response to these accusations of assimilationism, Nationalist sympathizers argue that the Nationalists failed because they were too preoccupied with struggles against rapacious warlords and foreign meddlers, and particularly with the protracted war with Japan.20 While debates of this kind are always divisive and inconclusive, in- depth investigations into the reality of Chinese Nationalist frontier policy remain scarce to date. Ultimately, discussions over the role of the Nationalists in shaping contemporary Chinas ethnic territo-riality continue to represent a serious gap in scholarly research. In one revisionist work, William Kirby reminds us that one of the surprising facts of the Chinese Republican era (191149) is that the vast territory of the former Qing Empire was not only redefined as Chinese under the Nationalists, but was also defended to such a degree that the borders of modern Peoples Republic of China (PRC) today are essentially identical to those of the Qing Empire. According to Kirby, this territorial maintenance was perhaps the great-est accomplishment of Republican diplomacy. Kirby also believes that the overall success of Republican and Nationalist Chinese diplomacy vis- -vis the most distant regions of the Manchu realm may help to explain why the con-temporary PRC is so resolutely determined to recover for China the territory of Taiwan, despite the readily apparent fact that Beijing has never for a single day governed the island.21 Kirbys point of view is shared by Joseph W. Esher-ick, who observes that the early Chinese Republics international relations largely defined and decided how the Qing Empire became China.22

The self- awareness and sophistication of Republican Chinas diplomacy may in part explain how the central regimes of China in the decades before the Com-munist victory were able to protect Chinas outlying territories from dismember-ment. Yet, any diplomatic maneuverings that may have taken place could not have been the sole factor leading to such astonishing preservation. Neither would Republican Chinese diplomacy alone be sufficient to explain how modern Chinas ethnic territoriality came to where it is today. When it comes to the making of contemporary Chinas frontier territoriality and border security, many critical questions remain unanswered. For example, leaving aside the inflated discourse of revolutionary propaganda, how did the Chinese Nationalists cope with the problematic yet unavoidable frontier territorial issues on a practical level? What did the Nationalist leaders of the early Chinese Republic really understand about the ethnic minority issues facing post- Qing China, at the

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xxx Prologue

moment when even the survival of their revolutionary campaigns was in doubt? Under what circumstances did the early Nationalists form their revolutionary ideologies? In 1928, the Nationalists under Chiang Kai- shek used the Northern Expedi-tion to seize power and were henceforth in a better position to implement their own ethnopolitical strategy. How did the highly localized central government in Nanking formulate a feasible strategy to extend their theretofore fictitious authority into the vast border regions while simultaneously confronting unrelent-ing challenges both from within and from abroad? Did Nationalist frontier policy planning emanate intact from their ideology, or did it instead emerge piece by piece from external factors that forced the Nationalists to constantly reevaluate and renegotiate their ethnopolitics? Finally, this book seeks to provide some pre-liminary answers to the question: What sort of impact did Nationalist ethnic frontier policies ultimately have on the Communist takeover of Chinas ethnic borderlands in the late 1940s and the early 1950s, and on the PRCs border defense and territoriality in the years that followed? Answers to these questions cannot be found without first scrutinizing the atti-tudes, strategies, and practices of the early Han Revolutionaries (and later Nationalists) relating to Chinas ethnopolitics before their coming to power in 1928. These issues will be discussed in Chapter 1.

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1 Early years and early strategies

Early perceptions toward ethnopoliticsEven today, when referring to the making of Republican China, a deep- rooted perception remains that the revolutionary campaign under Sun Yat- sen in the late Qing period was the central factor leading to the final collapse of Manchu rule. The political reality, however, was that Sun never really solidified his status as the top leader of Republican China. As a result, the Revolutionaries under Sun were largely unable to confront the ethnopolitical and territorial issues of post- Qing China. In January 1912, Sun Yat- sen was elected provisional president of the Chinese Republic. Yet within less than three months, his presidency was transferred to the northern- based Yuan Shikai, whose military power allowed him to stand out as the most capable figure to depose the ailing Qing imperial house, to command the more powerful Beiyang Army, and to generate foreign support.1 As Yuan became the new political leader of Republican China, it was his Peking- based government not Sun Yat- sen and his fellow Revolutionaries that was burdened with the challenging task of integrating the formerly Manchu outlying dependencies into the new Chinese nation- state. The Revolutionaries relative lack of political power in the early Chinese Republic by no means suggests that they were uninterested in the young Repub-lics precarious frontier scenario. Before the Revolution of 1911, the primary aim of Sun Yat- sen and his followers had been to topple the Manchus. As a result, the political slogan adopted by the Revive China Society and the subsequent Alliance Society (Tongmenghui) drive out the Tartar slaves and revive China inevi-tably loomed large in their thinking. During the inchoate stage of Chinese revolu-tion in the last decades of the Qing dynasty, however, the Revolutionaries had been struggling in vain to develop a consonant discourse about the Han peoples relations with other ethnic minority groups within the Qing Empire. As Pamela Crossley has argued, in the latter years of the Qing Empire, awareness of the evolving self- identities of non- Han Chinese in the domain of what was supposed to be China presented a conceptual crisis to the early nationalist Revolutionar-ies, regardless of their own varieties of ideological commitment.2 A key figure in the revolutionary activities, Wang Jingwei argued that a new China emancipated from Manchu rule would be a China entirely dominated by

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2 Early years and early strategies

the Han Chinese. As for the other ethnic frontier peoples, Wang optimistically believed that, once the Manchus were toppled and submitted to the Han Chinese, they would ultimately be assimilated into Han culture.3 Yet not all of Wang Jingweis fellow revolutionaries agreed with him. Liu Kuiyi, for instance, pro-posed on the eve of the Qing dynastys collapse that the Tongmenghui should expand its membership by recruiting new members from the Manchu, Mongol, Hui Muslim and Tibetan nationalities. Although Liu and many of his associates undoubtedly believed that China proper should belong to the Han Chinese, they nevertheless sensed that Han China proper would not be stable until the sur-rounding ethnic borderlands were secure. As a result, Liu advocated that the Han Revolutionaries should endeavor to woo the minority nationalities to their side without delay, and should treat them as important potential allies in overthrow-ing the Qing imperial rule.4 Pragmatic concerns soon came to the fore shortly after the 1911 Revolution, when suddenly the Qing imperial house was no longer the principal enemy; a fresh idea swiftly emerged among the Revolutionaries which imagined post- imperial China as the Republic of Five Nationalities (wuzu gonghe). The five nationalities were to include the five major ethnicities of the former empire: the Han Chinese, Manchus, Mongols, Tibetans and Hui Muslims. The premise of the five- nationality doctrine was the conviction that non- Han peoples on the ethnic frontiers would want equal treatment under Chinese jurisdiction, as opposed to political independence from Chinese control altogether.5 Moreover, behind the political ideology of this five- nationality republic was the implica-tion that the Revolutionaries wished to re- create the ethnic political order of the frontier this time with the Han people at the center once they took over the political machine of the whole Chinese nation. In August 1912, when the Alli-ance Society was reorganized as the KMT, and when the Revolutionaries were turning into the Nationalists, such a concept was further substantiated as an appeal for the strict implementation of racial assimilation.6 It therefore came as no surprise that, in the strong revolutionary milieu of 1910s China, the KMT Nationalists were outwardly uncompromising and deter-mined in their public expressions that Yuan Shikais republican regime should take a pro- active stance toward solving post- Qing Chinas problematic frontier territoriality. The crisis in Outer Mongolia (Mongolia north of the Gobi), was one of the earliest thorny problems confronting the nascent Peking authorities, and had attracted much attention among the Nationalists.7 In December 1911, the Mongols at Urga used the chaos of the Chinese Revolution as an opportunity to declare independence, with the reputed Yellow Hat sect prelate, the eighth Jebtsundamba Hutuktu, as their head of state (Bogd Khan). No longer believing that they should be loyal to a new Han Chinese republican regime, the Mongols ousted the Qing- appointed military governor from Urga, and most Han settlers who had flooded into Outer Mongolia in the last decade of Qing were driven out or killed during the period of 191112.8 On November 3, 1912, a Russo- Mongol Agreement was signed between Urga and Tsarist Russia, in which the Russians recognized the political autonomy of Outer Mongolia and promised to aid Urga

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Early years and early strategies 3

in the building and training of its own army. In return, the Mongols agreed to grant economic and trade privileges to the Russians. The signing of this agree-ment also indicated that henceforth the new Republican Chinas position in the vast formerly Qing dependency was nearing a point at which it might be entirely excluded.9 The general response of the Nationalists to the situation in Outer Mongolia was sharp and severe. Chiang Kai- shek, then a 26-year- old middle- ranking officer serving in the Shanghai Revolutionary Army, wrote in December 1912 that there was already a deep consensus among the majority of Chinese people that the use of military means was necessary if Republican China wished to con-solidate its precarious position on the northern frontier. Strongly favoring a proactive stance toward the independent- minded Outer Mongols, Chiang urged Peking to dispatch troops to Urga without hesitation in order to restore Chinese authority there. He also suggested that Yuan Shikai should be prepared to face up to the reality that, behind the scenes, Chinas true enemies were the Russians, who were backing the Mongols against the Chinese. The young Chiang Kai- shek cast serious doubt on whether Republican China was then capable of fighting a victorious war against Tsarist Russia. As a military man, however, Chiang still proposed a very detailed military scheme for the review of the policy planners in Peking, in which he argued that once the situation quieted down in Outer Mon-golia, some 200,000 troops should be deployed on such northern frontiers as Urga, northern Xinjiang and the Mongolia- Manchuria border in preparation for a possible war with Russia.10 Dai Chuanxian (also known as Dai Jitao), one of Chiang Kai- sheks closest revolutionary associates and an active revolutionary theorist who would be among Chiangs most trusted frontier advisors after 1928, was taking an equally proactive view about the infant Republics thorny frontier issues. Writing in November 1912 in the popular journal Minchuan Bao (Peoples Rights) he edited, Dai exclaimed that the KMT was then the only political party in China courageous enough to propose military solutions for the crisis in Outer Mongo-lia. Dai accused both Yuans central government and other political parties of adopting an evasive attitude toward problems on Chinas northern frontiers, and he strongly appealed to Han Chinese commoners to be prepared for a war with the treacherous and obstinate Mongols. Toward the end of 1912, Dai was so enthusiastic about using drastic means to secure the Mongolian region that he went as far as to urge his fellow countrymen to fulfill their citizen duties by saving daily expenses for the Peking governments military expenditure.11 The early Revolutionaries- cum-Nationalists like Chiang Kai- shek and Dai Chuanxian were equally concerned about the situation in Chinas ethnic border-lands in the southwest. Beginning around 1905, the Qing court implemented a series of reform programs in the southwest in order to strengthen the Qing gov-ernments declining influence in the region. Attempts made by the Qing court included insisting that all inhabitants of the Kham district in Eastern Tibet were subject to the Peking- appointed magistrates; that all taxes were to be paid to the central government; that traditional taxes paid to Lhasa were to be abolished;

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4 Early years and early strategies

and that all ethnic Tibetans were to be subject to Chinese law. These reform pro-grams, coupled with a Qing military advance from Sichuan into Tibet proper, greatly infuriated the thirteenth Dalai Lama, leading to his 1910 flight to India where he was warmly received by the British. The Qing court responded to the Dalai Lamas flight by deposing him.12

With the outbreak of the Chinese Revolution, the garrison troops stationed in Lhasa quickly mutinied, and Qing officials were in no position to continue their proactive policies. Taking advantage of the chaotic situation in China proper, Lhasa demanded the withdrawal of all Chinese soldiers and Qing- appointed offi-cials from Tibet. After assuming the presidency, Yuan Shikai hastily restored the rank and title of the exiled Dalai Lama, blaming the now defunct Qing court for the wrongdoings that had provoked his flight. Yet, the Dalai Lama was no longer prepared to trust any Chinese promises or to accept new Han- dominated Repub-lican Chinese authority over his realm. By the fall of 1912, most of the Chinese troops were removed from Tibet proper via British India, and in early 1913 the Dalai Lama triumphantly returned to a Lhasa free of Chinese troops and officials for the first time since the eighteenth century.13 Under strong diplomatic pressure from the British, who insisted that the settlement of outstanding issues between China and Tibet should be a precondition to their official recognition of the new Republic, Yuan was left with very few alternatives but to be conciliatory toward the Tibetans. When the Simla Talks took place in the fall of 1913, the Tibetan delegates were even allowed to be present on an equal footing with their Chinese and British counterparts.14 In the face of the unpromising frontier scenario in southwest China, the power- limited, out- of-office Nationalists seemed unanimously annoyed at the misconducts of Yuans central regime. To demonstrate that the KMT was much more capable than Peking when it came to dealing with frontier issues, Sun Yat- sen and Huang Xing enthusiastically advocated setting up various frontier devel-opment initiatives to encourage Han people to migrate to ethnic borderlands where they could develop natural resources in Chinas remote frontiers. Sun, then excited about a nationwide railroad construction project, argued it was extremely unwise for a poor country like China to neglect the development of its far- flung frontiers. His points thus implied that Chinas ethnic borderlands, including Outer Mongolia and Tibet, were the new Republics intra- state colo-nies that were indispensable for competing with the imperialist powers.15 Chiang Kai- shek believed that Tibet had historically been an inseparable part of Chinese territory, and the Tibetan refusal to allow Chinese troops to remain in Lhasa was obviously an intolerable gesture antagonistic to the establishment of a progressive, five- nationality Chinese Republic. Writing in the summer of 1912, when the regrouped Chinese forces in Kham under a capable Sichuan general named Yin Changheng were able to retake several local strongholds, Chiang advocated that the only way open for Peking vis- -vis Tibets territorial integrity was to encourage General Yin to continue his military advance into Lhasa so as to set up a basis for future negotiations with the British.16 His close comrade Dai Chuanxian also argued that the recovery of Tibet would not only help the Peking

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Early years and early strategies 5

authorities to incorporate this piece of territory into Chinas effective jurisdiction, but would also enhance Republican Chinas vulnerable border defense in the southwest, thus guarding against possible British encroachment from India. Like Chiang, Dai also encouraged Yuan Shikai to authorize Yin Changheng to act for the central government, allowing Yin to install new garrison stations in areas bor-dering Yunnan, Sichuan and Tibet after his military operations were completed.17 Conceivably still not in a position to offend the British, and presumably unwilling to allocate more financial and military resources to the remote, uncon-trollable local authorities in southwest China, Yuan Shikai repeatedly instructed Yin Changheng and his troops to halt on the KhamTibetan border and to avoid any conflict with the Tibetans. This decision was made despite the fact that Yins force was then on the winning side, and that provincial authorities in Yunnan and Sichuan, like the roaring Nationalists, were in favor of using military means to solve the Tibetan issue for good.18

Nationalism versus pragmatismThe latter- day image of the KMT as heir to modern Chinas nationalist move-ment, as well as the revolutionary forerunner of post- Qing Chinas territorial integrity, is so powerful that people tend inadvertently to forget the fact that skepticism about the early Chinese Revolutionaries genuine perceptions toward Chinas frontier territoriality had already emerged as early as the birth of the Republic. Kang Youwei, a well- known advocate of constitutional monarchy who was at odds with Sun Yat- sen, wrote in the summer of 1912 that while it was indeed correct to take the Outer Mongolian crisis seriously, the KMT National-ists could by no means be exempted from responsibility for causing such a grave situation. Kang candidly pointed out that the Russians were venturesome enough to advance into Chinas northern borderland simply because they were con-vinced that, in the last days of the Qing dynasty, the Revolutionaries still lacked a clear idea as to whether or not the far- flung ethnic minority territories should be included on the map of the new Republic. On the contrary, Kang argued that the Revolutionaries had a dual purpose with regard to post- Qing Chinas ethnic frontier territoriality. One the one hand, the Revolutionaries would be pleased to succeed the entirety of former Qing dependencies if the situation allowed. On the other hand, however, Sun Yat- sen and his followers would be ready to relin-quish the outlying territories if the foreign powers were willing to render support to their revolutionary cause within China proper. Therefore, as Kang saw it, when the revolution first broke out in Hubei Province, it was not surprising that the Wuhan military government chose the 18-star flag as Chinas new national flag. To many people both within and outside China, it was a clear indicator that the Revolutionaries top priority was to preserve the 18 provinces of China proper, while less concerned with whether the outlying territories of Mongolia, Xinjiang, Tibet and Manchuria would be preserved.19

As a matter of fact, after the revolution broke out in Hubei, the Revolutionar-ies relations with other non- Han peoples remained ambiguous. A decree issued

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6 Early years and early strategies

by the newly founded Wuhan military government of the Chinese Republic on the very day of the revolution defined the revolutionary cause as the independ-ence of Han people from the Manchu rule. Another telegram dispatched to the Qing court in Peking two days later on October 12 only required that the Manchus give up the throne, become a vassal, claim subjection, and pay tribute in their old homeland of Manchuria. The message manifestly demanded the Manchus surrender to the Han Chinese and their withdrawal from China proper. But it never made it clear the new governments relations with the Mongols, the Muslims, or the Tibetans.20

Viewed from a fresh historical angle, however, the indecisive and opaque character of the Revolutionaries ethnic minority policy to a large degree allowed them to selectively implement policies that would best serve their political inter-ests. About one month after the Wuhan uprising, the Revolutionaries decided on a peaceful transfer of power through negotiations with Yuan Shikai, then the most powerful Han Chinese figure serving in the Qing court. And it was at this juncture that, for the first time, the position of the non- Han peoples was being seriously contemplated among the Revolutionaries. On November 6, 1911, in the midst of the peace negotiations between the southern Revolutionaries and the northern Constitutionalists, Wang Jingwei and Yang Du, respectively represent-ing the two camps, organized a Society for United Salvation of National Affairs (Guoshi Gongjihui) in Peking. In its proclamation it advocated that both camps should endeavor to promote the peoples rights and that the five main nationali-ties should be under the rule of one united government so as to prevent Chinas territorial dismemberment.21 During the ongoing peace conference between the south and the north, it was further agreed that the vested interests of the Manchus, the Mongols, the Muslims, and the Tibetans should be preserved in order to maintain the Qings existing frontier territoriality and to avoid new Republican China being carved up by the imperialist powers.22 As a result, the discourse for the Han revolution and the Han independence from the Manchu rule was interwoven with the establishment of a Han- centered yet multi- ethnic Republic based on a meta- national ideal. It is noteworthy that, during the peace negotiations, the conditions settled upon by the south and the north to preserve the titles of the Manchu child Emperor Puyi and his imperial family, and their private property, were actually first broached by the Revolutionaries not by Yuans group with a view to prompting the north to accept a smooth and immediate power transition from the imperial house to the Revolutionaries. Despite dissenting views from within the revolutionary camp, these decisions, though outwardly favorable to the over-thrown Manchus, were made in fear of losing the territory inhabited by the other non- Han peoples and putting China in danger of being carved up. 23 Later on, in the spring of 1912, when the Revolutionaries in Nanking saw little hope of being at the helm and were obliged to surrender power to Yuan Shikais central regime in Peking, they shifted and decided to adopt a tough and uncompromising atti-tude toward Chinas problematic ethnic frontier issues in order to obtain more mass support. As has been discussed above, when the Mongolian and Tibetan

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