Xinjiang's production and construction corps, and the sinification of Eastern Turkestan

Inner Asia

Volumn 2, Issue 2, 2000, Pages 171-193

  Seymour, James D ^a  

^a Och Spine at New York Presbyterian Hospitals   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 0007698818     PISSN: 14648172     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1163/146481700793647805     Document Type: Article

References (93)

1. For details, see He Lan and Shi Weimin, Nan qing neimonggu shenchan jianshe bingtuan xiezhen (Southern Desert: The Realities of the Inner Mongolia bingtuan), (Beijing: Falü chubanshe, 1994), ch. 14.
2. Xinjiang's Bingtuan was conceived of in 1952, much earlier than those in other provinces, and may have provided inspiration for the bingluan established elsewhere later.
3. Fang Yingkai, Xinjiang Bingtuan tunken chengbian shi (The history of frontier building by the Xinjiang Bingtuan), (Ürümqi: Xinjiang kezhi weisheng chubanshe, 1997), p. 297.
4. The present article relies heavily on Fang. Also utilised were the Bingtuan's two yearbook series; Xinjiang Shenchan jianshe bingtuan nianjian (Yearbook of the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps, hereafter:XBN)(Ürümqi:Xinjiang Daxue chubanshe)
5. and Xinjiang shenchan jianshe bingtuan tongji nianjian (Statistical yearbook of the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps) (Beijing: Zhongguo Tongji Chubanshe).
6. See Henry G. Schwarcz, 'Chinese Migration to the Northwest China and Inner Mongolia, 1949-1959', The China Quarterly, December 1963, pp. 62-74.
7. On the Bingtuan's role among Kazaks, see chapter 4 of George Moseley, A Sino-Soviet Cultural Frontier: The Ili Kazakh Autonomous Chou, (Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1966).
8. The Bingtuan is divided into 10 divisions (shi), which in turn are typically divided into regiments (tuan). If the unit is a prison, the next lower unit will be a detachment (zhidui). Other units may be divided into brigades (dadui).
9. John Wilson Lewis and Xue Litai. China Builds the Bomb (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1988), p. 284. The status of most of these former Kuomintang soldiers in the Bingtuan occupied the 'gray area' between prisoner and civilian.
10. (On how the former Kuomintang troops were absorbed into the Bingtuan, see Bodard, Chinas Lächelndes Gesicht, pp. 141-6.)
11. According to Fang Yingkai (p. 331) prisoners in the mid-1950s comprised 41% of the Bingtuan work force and 54% of the population. The percentage of laogai prisoners in the population peaked at 60% in 1956, and declined to 54.6% in 1957. Fang does not indicate how paroled (jiuye) people fit into these figures, but acknowledges that they made 'an important contribution to the Bingtuan's development'. (Whether or not his figures include jiuye people is not too important because the bingtuan generally has long-term prisoners so at this early the Jiuye population would not have been large.)
12. This figure is actually 'workers and staff' (zhi gong) but does not include cadres (3,900), nor staff in schools, hospitals, and other institutions. Fang, 329.
13. Fang, 328.
14. Testimony of Teresa Buczacki before the U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, 25 July 1996, p. 2.
15. Quoted in Thomas Bernstein, Up to the Mountains and Down to the Villages: The Transfer of Youth from Urban to Rural China (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1977), p. 70.
16. The degree of autonomy has varied somewhat over the years. In the early 1990s the State Council decided that the Bingtuan would have provincial-level economic powers. Song Hanliang, speech to 1991 Regional Party Congress, Xinjiang ribao, 23 March 1991, pp. 1-3, U.S. Foreign Broadcast Information Service (hereafter, FBIS), 12 April 1991, p. 78.
17. Fang, p. 816.
18. Fang, p. 816.
19. Fang, p. 796.
20. Fang, p. 797.
21. Fang, p. 797.
22. Fang, p. 771.
23. Fang, p. 772.
24. Fang, p. 775.
25. Fang, p. 781, and Nong ba ken chu Shihezi shiji (Historical records of the [Bingtuan] Eighth Agricultural Division's reclamation district and Shihezi City) (Ürümqi: Xinjiang People's Publishing House, 1994).
26. For a somewhat different account of the Shihezi incident (based in large part on Red Guard reports), see Donald H. McMillen, Chinese Communist Power and Policy in Xinjiang, 1949-1977 (Boulder: Westview, 1979), pp. 202-7.
27. Fang, p. 787.
28. Quoted in Bernstein, p. 343, note 110.
29. McMillen, p. 216, citing NCNA, 2 October 1966.
30. Fang, pp. 195-6.
31. Division leaders who lost their jobs or worse numbered 153, or 83% of the total.
32. Fang, p. 801.
33. No. 1 (Aksu: 15 regiments in 1988), No. 2 (Korla: 15), No. 3 (Kashgar: 11), No. 4 (Yining: 17), No. 5 (Bole: 10), No. 6 (Changji: 10, plus one in Ürümqi), No. 7 (Kuitun: 7), No. 8 (Shihezi: 17), No. 9 (Tacheng: 6), and No. 10 (Altai: 5). There was never a No. 11. The short-lived Number 12 was in Qinghai. In addition, there are also some regiments (e.g., nos. 221, 222, 223) under the direct control of the Bingtuan. Also in this category is the First Construction Division, with headquarters in Ürümqi. This Division has some farms; apparently it produces its own food.
34. Fang, p. 789.
35. Fang, p. 798.
36. Fang, p. 781.
37. Fang, p. 853. (People deemed to have been 'totally wronged' numbered 37,652.)
38. Fang, p. 189.
39. Jiao Ran and Xu Junfeng, 'A Great Feat and a World Wonder', New China News Agency, 18 August 1996, FBIS, Daily Report Document Date: 18 August 1996 (via Internet).
40. Thirty thousand cadres were on the army's active list (xianyi ganbu). Fang, p. 819.
41. Fang, p. 818.
42. Prior to the Bingtuan's dissolution, its leader had been Zhang Jiecheng (who had once been vice chief-of-staff of the Shenyang Military District). He now disappeared from public view.
43. Fang, p. 826.
44. The line was 'three no changes' (son bu bian), meaning that there would be no changes in cadres and worker's political treatment, or in worker benefits (shengchan fuli).
45. Fang, p. 826.
46. In 1973 the Bingtuan had 100,000 urban youths, 2,000 of whom were Party members, and 20,000 belonging to the Youth League. Altogether, Xinjiang had 450,000 million urban youth (5.2% of the population). After 1975 the decline in population slowed. (In 1976 it dropped only slightly-to 1.76 million). See Liu Xiaomeng, Zhongguo zhiqing shidian (A dictionary of China's educated youth) (Chengdu: Sichuan People's Press, 1995); and Bernstein.
47. Agricultural output increased 350,540,000 RMB to 427,110,000 RMB. However, industry declined from 669,050,000 to 223,430,000. (It is not unlikely that the earlier Cultural Revolution figure was inflated more than the later figures.)
48. Fang, p. 829.
49. Fang, p. 830.
50. Fang, p. 820.
51. Fang, p. 831.
52. Fang, chap 16.
53. Fang, p. 862.
54. Fang, p. 866.
55. Renmin Ribao, 19 Feb., 1998 p 5, FBIS-CHI-98-064, Document Date: 5 March 1998.
56. Fang, p. 866.
57. The order was issued on 3 December 1981, but did not become effective until 1 April 1982.
58. Fang, p. 866.
59. Fang, p. 869.
60. Xinjiang Television, 3 June 1996, FBIS, 4 June 1996. (The '100,000' doubtless refers to 'militia' in the broadest sense, including former soldiers who can be called up in an emergency, but have not had recent training.)
61. Xinjiang ribao, 15 July 1998, pp. 1, 3, FBIS-CHI-98-254.
62. Fang, pp. 33-4.
63. E.g., Ürümqi Co., Aksu Co., Kuerle Co., Hami Co., Supply and Sales Co., Commerce and Trade Co., Goods and Materials Co., Nongken Import-Export Co., Xintian International Economy and Technology Co., various sugar refineries, textile mills, power plants, pharmaceutical plants, construction materials factories, metal-working plants, food-processing plants, hotels, an aviation company, and many numbered divisions and agricultural enterprises.
64. The Bingtuan prefers that the organisation be called a 'corporation' for external consumption. However, it is not a corporation in the sense of a private, limited-liability company.
65. See James D. Seymour and Richard Anderson, New Ghosts, Old Ghosts: Prisons and Labor Reform Camps in China (Armonk, N.Y.: M. E. Sharpe, 1998), pp. 228-30.
66. Officially, two-way trade in 1993 was US$135 million up 90% from 1992. This represented 15% of Xinjiang's foreign trade. Barter trade was put at $108 million, up 115% from 1992; 19% of the region's foreign barter trade. Major trading partners (in decreasing order of importance) are: Kazakstan, Russia, Hongkong, Japan, and Kyrgestan. XBN, 1994, pp. 29, 151, 161.
67. Fang, p. 823.
68. The Bingtuan is comprised of thirteen reclamation areas with eleven division-level agricultural organisations (175 if viewed in terms of regiment-level farms - tuanchang). There are also 55,000 industrial operations (manufacturing, communications, construction, water conservancy projects, etc.).
69. China Daily, 12 April 1996, p. 2.
70. See Nicolas Becquelin, 'Xinjiang in the Nineties', China Journal, no. 44, July 2000 (forthcoming).
71. The south was supposed to become 'the largest cotton-producing area in the country'. Wang Lequan, address to CPPCC, 27 March 1996, Xinjiang ribao, 28 March 1996, pp. 1-3, FBIS, 23 April 1996, p. 82.
72. XBN, 1994, pp. 34-5.
73. Jiao and Xu.
74. XBN, 1994, p. 34.
75. On the problems at mid-decade, see speech by Abdulahat Abdurixit (chairman of Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Regional People's Government), at the Second (Enlarged) Plenary Session of the Fifth Xinjiang Autonomous Regional Party Committee on 13 August 1996, Xinjiang ribao in Chinese, 18 Aug 96 pp. 1-2, FBIS-CHI-96-169.
76. XBN, 1994, p. 24.
77. XBN, 1994, p. 28.
78. Jiao and Xu.
79. In 1994 subvention was 89%. Becquelin.
80. Ming bao (Hong Kong, via internet), translation in FBIS 241, 28/9 August 1998, p. 13.
81. The following discussion draws from Seymour and Anderson, especially pp. 45-70. The ultimate sources for the information here include Bingtuan laogai gongzuo tongxun (Bingtuan prison work bulletin), and Bingtuan ribao (Bingtuan daily).
82. Party Standing Committee member Wang Chuanyou, quoted in 'Production and Construction Corps Holds Meeting, Calls on Cadres and Workers of All Nationalities to Contribute Toward Xinjiang's Stability and Development', Xinjiang ribao, 9 May 1996, p. 1, FBIS, 24 May 1996, p. 81.
83. The case of Alimjan, a Gulja middle school teacher (and school Party secretary) is an interesting example of how ethnic dissidents are sometimes handled. Alimjan was arrested by the People's Armed Police in 1998 and immediately placed in a Bingtuan prison. However, this was intended as only a temporary disposition of the case; he was transferred to a Gulja jail on a long-term basis. (Amnesty International, via www.)
84. There is one Bingtuan court for approximately every five regiments. They are accountable to the division-level court, which may have a staff of 80 or 90.
85. Altogether, the number of agricultural prisons (usually, farm complexes) maintained by the Bingtuan is 36 (Xin sheng bao, 16 March 1996, p. 2). If viewed in terms of squadron-level units (single farms), the number is probably 305.
86. Xin sheng bao, 30 April 1992, p. 2.
87. Taiwan Central News Agency, 21 January 1999; FBIS, 22 January 1999.
88. See Liu Xun, Xinjiang liangqian nian (Xinjiang two thousand years) (Ürümqi: Xinjiang Youth Press, 1998).
89. Subsidies currently run at about a billion RMB per year. From the mid-1980s to the early 1990s there was some confusion on the matter, but now Beijing is committed to continuing them, while obviously hoping that the Bingtuan will eventually become self-sufficient.
90. 'We may say that from its establishment to its growth and expansion, the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps could not have made any progress without the party Central Committee's and the State Council's care and leadership'. Jiao and Xu.
91. It may be worth noting that, in some years, at least, the non-Han population has grown at more than twice the rate the Han population has grown (XBN, 1994, p. 301). In 1993 the Han population grew at a rate of 0.6%, whereas the Uyghurs and Kazaks both grew at a rate of 1.4%.
92. Jiao and Xu.
93. Jiao and Xu.