ABSTRACT
Introduction Representing time-honored legacies dating back to the Han Dynasty, military-civilian integration (junmin jiehe) has been one of the unique characteristics of Xinjiang also under Chinese communist rule. The most significant institutional manifestation of this integration is the Xinjiang Production-Construction Corps (XPCC)—known in short as the bingtuan. Evolved since the early 1950s as a military cum civilian organization, it is one of those revolutionary institutions that have managed to survive to this very day, with one interruption though in a modified form. Still considered part of China’s defense system, the bingtuan is also the largest single employer and landowner in the Xinjiang-Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR): it controls about one third of all Han and about one third of the arable land in Xinjiang. Thus, it not only contributes to the region’s security but also commands much of its economic activity, infrastructure and assets, provides a good deal of its services, and exerts much political power. In many respects, it is a government within a government. So much so that, to a great extent yet on a different scale, Xinjiang could be compared to what is known in the United States as “company town.” Such towns are almost totally dependent on a single major enterprise (usually a mine, a big plant, or plantations) that provides indispensable and exclusive employment as well as most, if not all, the other services. These towns, in fact, “belong” to the company. Given the overwhelming predominance of the XPCC, Xinjiang has become in fact a “company province.” Its bingtuan is the last to survive, unlike other Production-Construction Corps in Heilongjiang and Inner Mongolia that have long been abolished or reorganized. In fact, Xinjiang’s PCC not only survives but thrives.
