The Sino-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact (traditional Chinese :中蘇互不侵犯條約; simplified Chinese :中苏互不侵犯条约; pinyin :Zhōng-sū hù bù qīnfàn tiáoyuē) was signed in Nanjing on August 21, 1937, between the Republic of China and the Soviet Union during the Second Sino-Japanese War. The pact went into effect on the day that it was signed and was registered in League of Nations Treaty Series on September 8, 1937. [1]
At first, the pact led to improving relations between the Kuomintang government, led by Chiang Kai-shek, and the Soviet Union. After the signing of the pact, the Soviets began sending aircraft to the Chinese national government in Operation Zet, as well as economic aid, to help stave off the Japanese invasion. Chiang hoped that was a precursor to Soviet intervention into the war, but as time passed, he soon realized that the Soviet Union was constricted in the aid that it could provide to avoid upsetting the tacit alliance with the United Kingdom, France, and later the United States, all of which favored China in the war but would back Japan against the Soviets to weaken the last two.[ citation needed ]
The treaty also allowed the Soviets to focus their attention more on the West, where Nazi Germany was building up for what appeared to be war with the Soviets, especially after the Soviet–Japanese Neutrality Pact had been signed. That contributed to the worsening relationship between China and Germany, which had already seen the end of German military assistance in China.
Ironically, in 1937, while the pact was being signed, the Soviets brazenly breached it before and after the signing by conducting the Xinjiang War (1937) from August to October.
The Soviet Army was assisting the puppet Governor Sheng Shicai in Xinjiang. The Kuomintang Muslim general Ma Hushan led the 36th Division (National Revolutionary Army) to resist the invasion.
Before the invasion, Ma Hushan had communicated with Chiang Kai-shek and mentioned to Peter Fleming that Chiang would send help to fight the Soviets. However, the outbreak of war against Japan led Ma to face the Soviet invasion on his own. Despite resisting and killing Soviet soldiers, Ma's forces eventually succumbed to Soviet mustard gas bombardment, and he fled to India, where he took a steamer back to China.
Sheng Shicai then invited Soviet forces to garrison in Turfan, right next to Gansu Province.
The Republic of China government was fully aware of the Soviet invasion of Xinjiang province and of Soviet troops moving around Xinjiang and Gansu, but it was forced to mask the maneuvers to the public as "Japanese propaganda" to avoid an international incident and for continued military supplies from the Soviets. [2]
The Chinese government responded with its own military moves. Muslim general Ma Buqing then virtually controlled the Gansu corridor. [3] He had earlier fought against the Japanese, but since the Soviet threat was great, Chiang made some arrangements regarding Ma's position. In July 1942, Chiang instructed Ma to move 30,000 troops to the Tsaidam marsh in the Qaidam Basin of Qinghai. [4] [5] Chiang named Ma Reclamation Commissioner, to threaten Sheng Shicai's southern flank in Xinjiang, which bordered Tsaidam.
After Ma had evacuated his positions in Gansu, Kuomintang troops from central China flooded the area and infiltrated Soviet occupied Xinjiang, gradually reclaimed it, and forced Sheng Shicai to break with the Soviets.
The Ili Rebellion broke out in Xinjiang when a Kuomintang Muslim officer, Liu Bin-Di, was killed while he was fighting Turkic Uyghur Rebels in November 1944. The Soviets supported the Turkic rebels against the Kuomintang, and Kuomintang forces fought back.
The Kuomintang government ordered Ma Bufang several times to march his troops into Xinjiang to intimidate the Soviet puppet Sheng Shicai. That helped in providing protection for Chinese settling in Xinjiang. [6] Ma Bufang was sent with the Muslim Cavalry to Urumqi by the Kuomintang in 1945 during the Ili Rebellion to protect it from the Uyghur army from Hi (now Ili). [7] [8] [9] [10]
Bai Chongxi was a Chinese general in the National Revolutionary Army of the Republic of China (ROC) and a prominent Chinese Nationalist leader. He was of Hui ethnicity and of the Muslim faith. From the mid-1920s to 1949, Bai and his close ally Li Zongren ruled Guangxi province as regional warlords with their own troops and considerable political autonomy. His relationship with Chiang Kai-shek was at various times antagonistic and cooperative. He and Li Zongren supported the anti-Chiang warlord alliance in the Central Plains War in 1930, then supported Chiang in the Second Sino-Japanese War and the Chinese Civil War. Bai was the first defense minister of the Republic of China from 1946 to 1948. After losing to the Communists in 1949, he fled to Taiwan, where he died in 1966.
Sheng Shicai was a Chinese warlord who ruled Xinjiang from 1933 to 1944. Sheng's rise to power started with a coup d'état in 1933 when he was appointed the duban of Xinjiang. His rule over Xinjiang is marked by close cooperation with the Soviet Union, allowing the Soviets trade monopoly and exploitation of resources, which effectively made Xinjiang a Soviet puppet state. The Soviet era ended in 1942, when Sheng approached the Nationalist Chinese government, but still retained much power over the province. He was dismissed from this post in 1944 and named Minister of Agriculture and Forestry. Growing animosity against him led the government to dismiss him again and appoint him to a military post. At the end of the Chinese Civil War, Sheng fled mainland China to Taiwan with the rest of Kuomintang.
The East Turkestan Republic (ETR) was a short-lived satellite state of the Soviet Union in northern Xinjiang, which existed from 1944 to 1946. It is often described as the Second East Turkestan Republic to differentiate it from the First East Turkestan Republic (1933–1934), but "second" was never a part of its official name.
Long Yun was governor and warlord of the Chinese province of Yunnan from 1927 to October 1945, when he was overthrown in a coup by Du Yuming under the order of Chiang Kai-shek.
Muhammad Amin Bughra, sometimes known by his Han name Mao Deming and his Turkish name Mehmet Emin Buğra (1901–1965), was a Uyghur Muslim leader who planned to set up a sovereign state, the First East Turkestan Republic. Muhammad Amin Bughra was a Jadidist.
The Ma clique or Ma family warlords is a collective name for a group of Hui warlords in Northwestern China who ruled the Chinese provinces of Qinghai, Gansu and Ningxia for 10 years from 1919 until 1928. Following the collapse of the Qing dynasty in 1912, the region came under Chinese Muslim warlord Ma Qi's control until the Northern Expedition by the Republic of China consolidated central control in 1928. There were three families in the Ma clique, each of them respectively controlled, parts of Gansu, Ningxia and Qinghai. The three most prominent members of the clique were Ma Bufang, Ma Hongkui, and Ma Hongbin, collectively known as the Xibei San Ma. Some contemporary accounts, such as Edgar Snow's, described the clique as the "Four Ma", adding Ma Bufang's brother Ma Buqing to the list of the top warlords. Other prominent Ma's included Ma Anliang, Ma Qi, Ma Lin, Ma Hu-shan, and Ma Zhongying.
Ma Hongkui was a prominent muslim warlord in China during the Republic of China era, ruling the province of Ningxia. His rank was lieutenant general. His courtesy name was Shao-yun (少雲). In 1950, Hongkui migrated to the United States, where he lived until he died in 1970.
Ma Hongbin, was a prominent Chinese Muslim warlord active mainly during the Republican era, and was part of the Ma clique. He was the acting Chairman of Gansu and Ningxia Provinces for a short period.
Ma Zhanshan was a Chinese general famous for resisting the Japanese invasion of Manchuria. Ma was placed in charge of the Northeastern Army in Heilongjiang Province during the invasion and ignored orders from the central government not to resist the Japanese. He became a national hero in China by fighting the unsuccessful but highly symbolic Jiangqiao campaign against the Kwantung Army's advance into Heilongjiang. After his defeat, he feigned defection to the Japanese and was appointed Minister of War in the new Japanese puppet state of Manchukuo. He then joined and took command of the guerrilla campaign against Japanese occupation, taking with him large amounts of supplies, funds, and military intelligence. Ma Zhanshan rejoined the Northeastern Army after the guerilla movement was largely defeated. He continued to oppose Chiang Kai-shek's policy of non-resistance and supported the Xi'an Incident that forced Chiang to form the Second United Front with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). He commanded several units in the National Revolutionary Army during the Second Sino-Japanese War while covertly cooperating with the CCP. Ma avoided direct participation in the postwar Chinese Civil War and eventually defected to the Communists, dying a year later in 1950.
Ma Buqing (1901–1977) was a prominent Ma clique warlord in China during the Republic of China era, controlling armies in the province of Qinghai.
The Xinjiang clique was a military clique that ruled Xinjiang during China's warlord era. Unlike other cliques, its leaders were from outside the province.
The Soviet invasion of Xinjiang was a military campaign of the Soviet Union in the Chinese northwestern region of Xinjiang in 1934. White Russian forces assisted the Soviet Red Army.
The Ili Rebellion was a separatist uprising by the Turkic peoples of northern Xinjiang against the Kuomintang government of the Republic of China, from 1944 to 1946. The Ili Rebellion began with the East Turkestan National Revolution, known in Chinese historiography as the Three Districts Revolution, which saw the establishment of the Second East Turkestan Republic. The leadership was dominated by Uyghurs but the population consisted mostly of Kazakhs.
The Second Battle of Ürümqi was a conflict in the winter of 1933–1934 at Ürümqi, between the provincial forces of Sheng Shicai and the alliance of the Chinese Muslim Gen. Ma Zhongying and Han Chinese Gen. Zhang Peiyuan. Zhang seized the road between Tacheng and the capital. Sheng Shicai commanded Manchurian troops and a unit of White Russian soldiers, led by Col. Pappengut. The Kuomintang Republic of China government had secretly incited Zhang and Ma to overthrow Sheng—even as they prepared to swear him in as governor of Xinjiang—because of his ties to the Soviet Union. Chinese Nationalist leader Gen. Chiang Kai-shek sent Luo Wen'gan to Xinjiang, where he met with Ma Zhongying and Zhang Peiyuan and urged them to destroy Sheng.
In 1937 an Islamic rebellion began in southern Xinjiang. The rebels were 1,500 Uighur Muslims commanded by Kichik Akhund, who was tacitly aided by the New 36th Division, against the pro-Soviet provincial forces of the puppet Sheng Shicai.
The Kuomintang Islamic insurgency was a continuation of the Chinese Civil War by Chinese Muslim Kuomintang Republic of China Army forces mainly in Northwest China, in the provinces of Gansu, Qinghai, Ningxia, and Xinjiang, and another insurgency in Yunnan.
The Kumul Rebellion was a rebellion of Kumulik Uyghurs from 1931 to 1934 who conspired with Hui Chinese Muslim General Ma Zhongying to overthrow Jin Shuren, governor of Xinjiang. The Kumul Uyghurs were loyalists of the Kumul Khanate and wanted to restore the heir to the Khanate and overthrow Jin. The Kuomintang wanted Jin removed because of his ties to the Soviet Union, so it approved of the operation while pretending to acknowledge Jin as governor. The rebellion then catapulted into large-scale fighting as Khotanlik Uyghur rebels in southern Xinjiang started a separate rebellion for independence in collusion with Kirghiz rebels. The various groups of rebels were not united. The main part of the war was waged by Ma Zhongying against the Xinjiang government. He was supported by Chiang Kai-shek, the Premier of China, who secretly agreed to let Ma seize Xinjiang.
Ma Hu-shan was a Hui warlord and the brother-in-law and follower of Ma Zhongying, a Dungan/Hui Ma Clique warlord. He ruled over an area of Southern Xinjiang, nicknamed Tunganistan by Westerners, from 1934 to 1937.
Ma Zhongying, also Ma Chung-ying, nickname Commander Ga, was a Hui Chinese Muslim warlord during the Warlord era of China. His birth name was Ma Buying. Ma was a warlord of Gansu Province in China during the 1930s. His alliance with the Kuomintang (KMT) brought his predominantly Chinese Muslim troops under the control of the KMT as the New 36th Division with Ma Zhongying as its commander. He was ordered to overthrow Jin Shuren, the governor of Xinjiang. After several victories over provincial and White Russian forces, he attempted to expand his territory into southern Xinjiang by launching campaigns from his power base in Gansu, but was stopped by Xinjiang warlord Sheng Shicai with Soviet support in 1934.
Xinjiang Province or Sinkiang Province was a province of the Republic of China. First set up as a province in 1884 by the Qing dynasty, it was replaced in 1955 by the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region of the People's Republic of China. The original provincial government was relocated to Taipei as the Sinkiang Provincial Government Office (新疆省政府辦事處) until its dissolution in 1992.