ABSTRACT
The status of Xinjiang from the nineteenth century to the present day is far from cut and dried. After the forces of the Manchu Qing emperors had conquered the territory in the late eighteenth century, it was ruled from Beijing, but it was governed at arm’s length, by local landowners under the supervision of imperial ambans. In southern Xinjiang, Yakub Beg took power in 1865 and ruled Kashgaria until his death in 1877. After a protracted debate within the Qing ruling elite over the possibility, and even the desirability, of retaining control over such a remote and problematic region, Xinjiang was formally incorporated into the Chinese Empire as a province in 1884. Even then, day-to-day rule was exercised through the existing power structures which were controlled as before by the powerful Muslim members of the local Turki (predominantly Uyghur) elite. After the Revolution of 1911, Qing rule came to an end in Xinjiang and the same Turki elite continued to control the region under governors appointed by the new Chinese Republic. However, the Republic was unable to establish a stable government in Beijing and the rest of eastern China, let alone concern itself with the perilous and frustrating ethnic and religious politics of Xinjiang. During the Republican period 1911-49, Xinjiang was ruled by three gover-
nors, Yang Zengxin, Jin Shuren and Sheng Shicai, all nominally owing allegiance to the governments of the Republic, including from 1928 to the National Government of Chiang Kaishek in Nanjing, but in practice they operated as independent warlords. The overriding preoccupations of the successive governors were the management of ethnic and factional strife and relations with the increasingly influential Soviet Union. Dealing with Chinese governments in Beijing or Nanjing were of secondary importance. The provincial government of Xinjiang was based in Urumqi: Kashgar and its region were to a large extent independent simply because of the distance from the provincial capital and poor communications.
