Word: sinkiang
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1940-1949
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
This is big news. From Sinkiang had come rumors of Red Army garrisons, secret torture chambers, murder, violence and the silent operation of agents of contending empires. Now there was peace on the inner frontiers of Asia. That peace had been achieved by a diplomatic feat as great as any in Chinese history, as significant as the abolition of extraterritoriality by the U.S. and Britain. It meant the practical recognition by the U.S.S.R. of China's status as a sovereign equal...
...history. The story began in the early '30s when years of misrule under a senile, corrupt bureaucracy brought the ancient tension between the Chinese ruling minority and the Moslem Turko peasantry to the breaking point. From Kansu, the terminal province of the Great Wall, ferocious Tungan cavalrymen entered Sinkiang in 1931 under the leadership of a 26-year-old horseman-Ma Chung-ying. To his banners rallied Turko peasants and Tungan (Chinese Moslem) rebels. Burning, looting, raping, they all but annihilated the Chinese population in the south mountains...
...from India. To the Russians, it seemed that the British Consulate at Kashgar might be almost as dangerous as the reported Japanese advisers of Ma Chung-ying. There were other reasons for the Soviet fear. White Russian troops, remnants of the legions of Annekov Dutov, still operated in Sinkiang. The general unrest on the Chinese side of the border might be swiftly communicated to the unstable Moslem millions in Soviet Uzbekistan, Kazakstan and Turkmenistan. These were unspoken Russian calculations...
...from Kansu, Sheng Shih-tsai invited the Russians to set up a Red Army garrison at Kami. A full regiment of Russian troops was stationed there-dressed not in Soviet uniform, but in the Chinese uniform. Russia was permitted to establish a trade agency called Sovintorg which monopolized all Sinkiang export trade. The newly built Turksib Railway exercised enormous economic force. Russians helped to lay out roads, planned irrigation projects, trained a provincial army, staffed provincial hospitals...
...Days of Hope. The two TIME & LIFE men arrived at the height of the change. Outgoing roads were dotted with cars hauling out Russian equipment from dismantled plants. The Russians were withdrawing their drilling and refining equipment from the Sinkiang oilfields. The Russian garrison at Hami was departing by truck, in small units. The Russians were removing their autos, spare tires, generators, household goods and furniture. Their Sovintorg had closed all its minor agencies and turned the buildings over to the Chinese Government...