Into the People's Republic: Autonomy, Settlers and the XPCC
The People's Liberation Army enters Xinjiang in 1949, the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region is created in 1955, and a paramilitary settler corps, the XPCC, begins bringing millions of Han Chinese to the region.
- Eurasian Crossroads: A History of Xinjiang — James A. Millward, Columbia University Press (2007)
- The Uyghurs: Strangers in Their Own Land — Gardner Bovingdon, Columbia University Press (2010)
- Oil and Water: Being Han in Xinjiang — Tom Cliff, University of Chicago Press (2016)
- The War on the Uyghurs: China's Internal Campaign against a Muslim Minority — Sean R. Roberts, Princeton University Press (2020)
- Xinjiang's population and ethnic composition in the Seventh National Population Census — Xinhua, Xinhua News Agency (2021)
- Xinjiang: China's Muslim Borderland — S. Frederick Starr (ed.), M. E. Sharpe (2004)
“Peaceful liberation”
In September 1949, as the Communists won the civil war, the Nationalist leaders in Ürümqi, the governor Burhan Shahidi and the commander Tao Zhiyue, declared their allegiance to the new government. PLA troops under Wang Zhen entered the region that autumn. The leaders of the East Turkestan Republic in the north had died in a plane crash weeks earlier, and their successors accepted the new order. Armed resistance, most famously by the Kazakh leader Osman Batur, was crushed by 1951.
- Eurasian Crossroads: A History of Xinjiang — James A. Millward, Columbia University Press (2007)
- The Ili Rebellion: The Moslem Challenge to Chinese Authority in Xinjiang, 1944–1949 — Linda Benson, M. E. Sharpe (1990)
Autonomy on paper
Following the Soviet model, the PRC classified its peoples into official nationalities, and the Uyghurs became the largest of Xinjiang’s thirteen recognised groups. On 1 October 1955 the province became the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, with autonomous prefectures and counties for Kazakhs, Mongols, Kyrgyz, Hui and others. Since then the region’s government chairman has always been a Uyghur, and Uyghur-language schools, newspapers and publishing expanded. But real authority lay with the regional Communist Party secretary, almost always a Han Chinese.
- The Uyghurs: Strangers in Their Own Land — Gardner Bovingdon, Columbia University Press (2010)
- Eurasian Crossroads: A History of Xinjiang — James A. Millward, Columbia University Press (2007)
The XPCC
In 1954 Wang Zhen’s demobilised soldiers, along with former Nationalist troops, were organised into the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps (XPCC, or bingtuan), a paramilitary organisation of farms, factories and towns that answered largely to Beijing. Over the following decades it absorbed hundreds of thousands of Han migrants, including young volunteers and people sent from the cities, irrigated vast areas, especially in the north, and built cities such as Shihezi.
- Oil and Water: Being Han in Xinjiang — Tom Cliff, University of Chicago Press (2016)
- Eurasian Crossroads: A History of Xinjiang — James A. Millward, Columbia University Press (2007)
Han migration transformed the region. Han Chinese were about 6% of Xinjiang’s population in 1953; by 2020 the census counted about 10.9 million Han (42%) and 11.6 million Uyghurs (45%) in a population of about 25.9 million. Han people are concentrated in the north and in the cities, especially Ürümqi, while Uyghurs remain the large majority in the southern oases.
- Eurasian Crossroads: A History of Xinjiang — James A. Millward, Columbia University Press (2007)
- Xinjiang's population and ethnic composition in the Seventh National Population Census — Xinhua, Xinhua News Agency (2021)
Hard years
The Great Leap Forward brought famine to Xinjiang as elsewhere. In 1962, tens of thousands of people, many of them Kazakhs and Uyghurs, fled across the border from Ili into the Soviet Union. When the Sino-Soviet split followed, the border closed, families were divided for decades, and Soviet-trained cadres came under suspicion. From 1964 China tested nuclear weapons at Lop Nur, in the region’s east, a source of lasting health fears.
- Eurasian Crossroads: A History of Xinjiang — James A. Millward, Columbia University Press (2007)
- Xinjiang: China's Muslim Borderland — S. Frederick Starr (ed.), M. E. Sharpe (2004)
Xinjiang was peacefully liberated in 1949, ending feudal exploitation and foreign meddling. Under the system of regional ethnic autonomy, the Uyghurs and other peoples became masters of their own affairs, with Uyghur chairmen, Uyghur-language schools and media. The XPCC has developed and defended the frontier, turning desert into farmland and bringing prosperity to all ethnic groups.
- Eurasian Crossroads: A History of Xinjiang — James A. Millward, Columbia University Press (2007)
- Oil and Water: Being Han in Xinjiang — Tom Cliff, University of Chicago Press (2016)
1949 began an occupation. Real power has always lain with the Communist Party, whose regional leader has almost always been Han, and with the XPCC, a state within a state that took the best land and water. Han migration changed the region's make-up, from around 6% Han in 1953 to about 42% by 2020, and Uyghurs were shut out of the best jobs.
- The Uyghurs: Strangers in Their Own Land — Gardner Bovingdon, Columbia University Press (2010)
- The War on the Uyghurs: China's Internal Campaign against a Muslim Minority — Sean R. Roberts, Princeton University Press (2020)
- Xinjiang's population and ethnic composition in the Seventh National Population Census — Xinhua, Xinhua News Agency (2021)
Historians describe a mix: the early PRC did invest in minority-language education, recognised Uyghurs as a nationality and promoted Uyghur cadres, but autonomy was limited by Party control, and Han settlement through the XPCC and later migration had features of settler colonialism, a term some scholars use and others reject.
- Eurasian Crossroads: A History of Xinjiang — James A. Millward, Columbia University Press (2007)
- The Uyghurs: Strangers in Their Own Land — Gardner Bovingdon, Columbia University Press (2010)
- Oil and Water: Being Han in Xinjiang — Tom Cliff, University of Chicago Press (2016)
- Terror Capitalism: Uyghur Dispossession and Masculinity in a Chinese City — Darren Byler, Duke University Press (2022)
Why it matters today
Every Uyghur grievance and every official claim about Xinjiang goes back to this period. Beijing calls 1949 "peaceful liberation" and points to the autonomous region named after the Uyghurs; many Uyghurs say the autonomy was never real, and that Han migration through the XPCC and later economic development turned them into a minority in much of their own homeland. The XPCC still runs its own cities, farms and courts across Xinjiang.