ABSTRACT
The Chinese civil war was brought to an end in 1949-50 by the military successes of the PLA (People’s Liberation Army) under Lin Biao’s brilliant leadership.1 Beijing surrendered in January 1949, Chengdu (China’s last major unconquered city) fell in December and Hainan Island was recaptured in April 1950. PLA troops entered Lhasa in October 1951; it is one of the many ironies of the CCP ‘project’ that a party committed to eliminating any imperial presence within China was nevertheless determined to preserve its own internal colonies in Tibet, Qinghai, Xinjiang and Inner Mongolia. To be sure, the Chinese empire had still to be completed; Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan remained to be conquered. Nevertheless, the Han heartland had been regained. And to mark that process, the founding of the People’s Republic was declared on 1 October 1949, well before the conclusion of the civil war.2
