AHC Independant Xinjiang/East Turkestan/Uyghurstan

How could Xinjiang become independant with a POD after 1900?

How long would it last? Could it last to present day (2018)?
 
Well if it gets independance in the early 1900's i'm sure it would exist today.

If not, depending on how the civil war goes and depending on how China reacts. I mean if we're talking post civil war, i don't think it lasts all that long as if they overthrow the local government, the federal government would just send the army into Xinjiang to crack down.
 

RousseauX

Donor
How could Xinjiang become independant with a POD after 1900?

How long would it last? Could it last to present day (2018)?
Yes, it could have easily became independent Soviet client state in the 1930s, it could have survived in the cold war with the USSR protecting it. In fact, I would say it's weird that it -didn't- become independent in the 1930s.

By the 1990s or so after ussr collapse China might have decided its basically just like Mongolia: too full of non-Han looking people to want back. It becomes something similar to Turkestan

China would have still strong armed its way into getting its government letting chinese oil company in and there would be an enclaves of chinese oil workers near oil fields kinda like Africa today but no massive ethnic han immigration into the region like there is otl.
 
Last edited:
Easy: Just have the KMT win the civil war and the Soviets prop up a pro-Soviet Uighur Republic as part of a string of buffer states against the RoC (along with Mongolia and a "PRC-in-Manchuria").
 
Easy: Just have the KMT win the civil war and the Soviets prop up a pro-Soviet Uighur Republic as part of a string of buffer states against the RoC (along with Mongolia and a "PRC-in-Manchuria").
What about a scenario were Uyghurstan is independant in a world similar so ours?
 

RousseauX

Donor
What about a scenario were Uyghurstan is independant in a world similar so ours?
The Soviets would have kept an independent Xinjiang in a PRC victory scenario in the same way they kept independent Mongolia otl:

the opportunity was there otl in the 1930s-early 40s, Stalin just didn't take it
 

Kaze

Banned
It would likely become a third-world nation where the corrupt government could not even feed or employ its own people.
Meanwhile the rest of China would be a first-world nation making the independent Xinjiang/East Turkestan/Uyghurstan its puppet, client-state, or it like how the US treats the nation of Mexico.

.
 
The Soviets would have kept an independent Xinjiang in a PRC victory scenario in the same way they kept independent Mongolia otl:

the opportunity was there otl in the 1930s-early 40s, Stalin just didn't take it
The warlord in charge of Xinjiang at the time was Sheng Shicai, who even for a Chinese warlord was nakedly opportunist: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sheng_Shicai#1937–38_purges

He specifically begged Stalin to annex the area into the USSR (he himself was already secretly granted CPSU membership by Molotov) in 1944, when the Soviets were seemingly victorious.

As for how specifically he lost power:
As the Germans lost the Battle for Stalingrad, Sheng tried to return to the pro-Soviet policy. He ordered the arrest of the Kuomintang personnel, telling Stalin that they were Japanese spies, and telling Chiang that they were communists. Stalin, however, refused to intervene, and left Sheng at the mercy of the Central government, which engineered his removal from office.[82] Zhu Shaoliang convinced him to resign and to accept the post of Minister of Agriculture.[83] Sheng officially resigned from his post and was appointment as Minister of Agriculture and Forestry on 29 August 1944. He left Xinjiang on 11 September 1944 to join the Central government in Chongqing.[84] The post of Minister of Agriculture under Kuomintang was reserved for men out of power, since the post was insignificant with the increasing power of the landlords.[83] Chiang signed an order allowing Sheng to recoup the wealth beneath the governor's building. The storehouse contained fifty thousand taels of gold, chests full of valuable antelope horns, and endless blocks of opium. In total, Sheng removed 135 truckloads of wealth.[84]
 
How could Xinjiang become independant with a POD after 1900?

How long would it last? Could it last to present day (2018)?

I once suggested three scenarios:

SCENARIO ONE

First POD: Stalin doesn't stop the Ili National Army when it's on the verge of capturing Urumqi in 1945. https://www.alternatehistory.com/discussion/showpost.php?p=11115746&postcount=3 He also intervenes in the power struggle between the pro-Soviet "progressive" wing of the Ili rebels (led by Ahmadjan Qasim, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ehmetjan_Qasim who had spent a decade in the USSR) against the "Turkic/Islamic" wing so that the "progressive" elements dominate all of Xinjiang, not just the "Three Districts" as in OTL. Then, when Chiang wins the Chinese Civil War (that's the other POD), the East Turkestan Republic declares itself independent and asks for Soviet support...

(Incidentally, in OTL some people find Qasim's death in a plane crash in 1949 a little too convenient for Mao.)

This is not very likely: I do not think Stalin will want to alienate China--even a KMT China--to that extent, though he will try to maneuver to keep some Soviet influence in the "Three Districts."

SCENARIO TWO

The Turkish Islamic Republic of East Turkestan (TIRET) proclaimed by emirs in Kashgar in 1933 somehow survives. Very implausible--it just had too many enemies: the KMT, the Soviets, the Tungans, etc. Despite the claims of its critics that it was a "British puppet" it doesn't seem to have gotten any British support, either.

SCENARIO THREE

The Japanese, having established control in Inner Mongolia, move west and establish an Islamic "Manchukuo" in Xinjiang. The problem is that this involves a serious risk of conflict with the Soviets--but maybe the Japanese are willing to take it to prevent Stalin from using Xinjiang to get supplies to Chiang Kai-shek.
 
Last edited:
Top