Word: sinkiang
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ALONG the 4,500-mile border shared by Russia and China, there is no clearer natural dividing line than the purple-hued Tien Shan mountain range. Rising majestically to heights of almost 25,000 feet, the permanently snowcapped peaks separate Soviet Kazakhstan from the Chinese region of Sinkiang. One main pass through the Tien Shan range is called the Dzungarian Gates, named after the Dsongars who formed the left flank of the Mongolian army of old. Historically the Gates have been the passageway for Mid-Asian traffic between Russia and China. Last week the two Communist giants reported that their...
According to China, which first reported the skirmish, Soviet troops intruded into Sinkiang for no ostensible reason. They killed one shepherd, kidnaped another, and brought large numbers of tanks and armored cars onto Chinese soil in an effort to "provoke still larger armed conflicts," said Peking. After the Russians refused to "talk reason," Chinese troops fought back in self-defense, but the situation was still "developing," the Chinese protest to Moscow added ominously...
...most ominous aspect of the event was the implication from both sides that such clashes had occurred before in this sensitive area. The Sinkiang border region is probably a more volatile confrontation point than even the far-eastern Ussuri River area, where Chinese and Soviet troops engaged in a series of bloody border fights last March. The Dzungarian Gates lie just 250 miles from China's nuclear-testing and research sites on the Taklamakan Desert. Moreover, the Sinkiang Uighur Autonomous Region, as it is officially called, is two-thirds populated by Kazakh peoples, many of whom resent Chinese rule...
...Either Mao and his clique step down, or Peking will be seized. To reinforce the warning, Soviet heavy bombers destroy China's nuclear-testing-and-development centers at Lop Nor and Lanchow. Stubbornly, Mao decides to fight on. Peking falls, and to the west, Soviet divisions surge into Sinkiang, to be received without conspicuous resentment by the tribal peoples of the area, long oppressed by the Chinese. The Russians move no farther south. Aware of Chinese skills at guerrilla warfare, Moscow orders that a new frontier be set up roughly along the 38th parallel. China is to be left...
Guerrilla warfare might be instigated by one side or the other, particularly by the Russians, since the Uigurs and Kazakhs who live along China's side of the Sinkiang border have been susceptible to Soviet pressures in the past. Hit-and-run air strikes, first at minor targets, then at more vital areas, would prove less costly than ground incursions in terms of men and materiel. All-out air strikes, however, would almost certainly provoke a declaration...