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Under the Soviet Shadow. The Yining Incident: Ethnic Conflicts and International Rivalry in Xinjiang, 1944-1949. By DAVID D. WANG. Hong Kong: The Chinese University Press, 1999. ix, 577 pp. $32.00 (paper).
Set in the backdrop of the Second World War and the Chinese civil war, the rise and fall of the ephemeral East Turkestan Republic (ETR) in the three northwestern districts of Xinjiang (Yili, Tacheng, and Ashan) between 1944 and 1949 is a particularly intriguing historical episode. In continuation with the "Great Game" mold that characterized the interplay of English, Russian, and Chinese empires jostling for influence and control over the region, this nationalist Moslem uprising, supported by the Soviets and aimed at ending Chinese domination of Xinjiang, ended with the peaceful surrender ("liberation" in PRC's lexicon) in 1949 to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) authorities. At the time, however, the CCP had not yet played a role in the region, and the People's Liberation Army (PLA) had still not reached Xinjiang.
Explanations for this outcome, as well as for the whole episode, have never been entirely satisfactory. The two authoritative references on this episode-Andrew Forbes's Warriors and Muslims in Chinese Central Asia: A Political History of Republican Sinkiang (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986) and Linda Benson's The Ili Rebellion: The Moslem Challenge to Chinese Authority in Xinjiang 1944-1949 (Armonk, N.Y.: M.E. Sharpe, 1990) (Benson's being the only study in English specifically devoted to the ETR)-failed to shed full light on the matter. In fact, both books pointed to an array of factors (the imminent arrival of the PLA and the isolation of local Guomindang troops, the likelihood that the Soviets favored CCP control of Xinjiang, the bitter divisions inside the Yili regime, etc.), but failed to isolate a decisive cause....