Article 52 of the Common Program

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The PLA recruited some soldiers with a minority background during the Long March and the war against Japan. The Japanese occupiers did have some early successes at winning allies among the Manchus and Mongols with the advocacy of anti-Han programs. During the Civil War, the CCP intensified recruitment, especially Hui and Mongol cavalry played a significant role during some military campaigns. Li and Miao were operational on Hainan island. By 1949, the East Turkestan Republic in Xinjiang had an armed force of more than 14,000 soldiers, but this army was peacefully integrated into the Chinese People’s Liberation Army in December 1949. "Between 1950 and 1955, troops in the predominantly Uyghur and Qazaq Ili National Army (INA), formerly the military arm of the Eastern Turkistan Republic, were folded into the PLA or demobilized and settled on paramilitary farms. In both cases, these troops fell under direct CCP control " The CCP support for self-determination prior to 1949 had been strategically and tactically an advantage which the GMD government lacked. See Article 51. 50.000 Koreans from China were active during the Korean War. Upon recruitment, minorities were required to meet identical physical standards as Han recruits, but they were not held to the same educational standards. Multiple reports on minority recruitment suggest that minorities received instruction from their Han counterparts in subjects such as reading and writing, political affairs, and others. Typically, minority soldiers were stationed in the region from which they were recruited. Upon leaving the military, many minorities assumed cadre roles at various levels within production units. Those who continued their military service to become officers or military cadres were often assigned to militia duties instead of regular PLA field commands. There have never been ethnic Uyghur or Tibetan chief commanders in their home military districts, only Margub Iskhakov, with a Tatar background became a general at the young age of 32 in 1955. Ma Hongbin, a Muslim general, defected with his army to the PLA. He became the vice chairman of the province Gansu. Ma Benzhai, Hui nationality, was born in Xianxian County, Hebei Province in 1901. He joined the CCP in October 1938. In October 1937, he organized a Hui Nationality Anti-Japanese Army of Volunteers made up of 60 people. In 1944, he died and Mao Zedong wrote an elegy in memory of him: "Comrade Ma Benzhai is immortal!" "Individual members of non-Han populations are presented as war heroes whose contribution, however small, is declared essential in the war. Another post-war strategy for rally the different nationalities to the Chinese national cause by playing on their sense of belonging and identification with this hero of national greatness" The minorities supported the PLA in donations, for example: "...,the “Hui Culture Promotion Association” persuaded the Muslim Chinese to donate a military airplane to support the resistance. From 1938 to 1939, over 50,000 fur coats, a large amount of medicine and 10 tons of white board paper were sent by HCPA to Yanan to support the Eighth Route Army."

Lack of trust remained in the Han dominated PLA. Less scruples existed against highly Sinicized ethnic groups like the Zhuang and Manchus, but more objections were raised against the less Sinicized minorities of the west. In these Regions (Tibet and Xinjiang), separatist ideas flourished. There are no data for the amount of soldiers with a minority background in the 1950s. The data of 1990 suggest that the percentage lies around 1 per cent.

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The MPS considered the minority Regions as "special and complex". Each Region needed a specific approach. "In Xinjiang, for example, it included communities home to "elements who on the eve of and after Liberation returned to China from India, Pakistan, and Afghanistan." ⁵⁸ Public security officers suspected, and not always unjustifiably, that some recent returnees worked for hostile intelligence services." In Tibet, security agents investigated Tibetan elite and religious leaders. Members of the minority elite who had fled to Taiwan or Hong Kong were also closely under surveillance after they returned. Luo Ruiqing, stipulates: "...with respect to the development of agent work, in accordance with our needs in the struggle against the enemy, the emphasis for now is on cultivating and recruiting secret investigation agents.⁵⁷." Commencing in 1954, the Central People's Public Security Academy initiated specialized courses tailored for officers hailing from several of China's major ethnic minority groups. A total of sixty junior public security officers from Xinjiang, representing thirteen distinct nationalities such as Uighurs and Kazakhs, comprised the inaugural Nationalities Class I. These individuals underwent training at the academy for a duration of twelve months during the period of 1954-55.

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On May 23, 1951, a Tibetan delegation and the government of the PRC reached The Agreement of the Central People's Government and the local government of Tibet on Measures for the Peaceful liberation of Tibet . Article 52 of the Common Program, while not explicitly mentioned in the Agreement, holds significant importance. Its subject matter is so crucial that it is addressed in four of the Seventeen Points (2, 8, 13, and 16). The content had to be expanded to accommodate the unique Tibetan situation, where pre-1950 Tibet functioned as a separate political entity with its own military, regardless of its effectiveness. However, the Chinese Communists deemed it essential for PLA troops not only to "liberate" Tibet but also to maintain a prolonged presence there. This decision contradicted the Tibetan authorities' resolve to preserve a substantial degree of autonomy, which required the retention of some local forces. From 1951 to 1956, the traditional Tibetan administration governed a part of Tibet, but was supervised by Han PLA officers and cadres. Phuntsog Wangyal, founder of the Tibetan Communist Party, was appointed to the Southwest Military administration and named as a deputy director of the United Front in Central Tibet. His appointments can be “…regarded as having held these positions not as a figurehead but, at least in popular perception, as an actual or as a potential power-holder.”
In Tibet, rivalries among regional elites created tensions, which were openly leveraged by the Chinese administration in the 1950s. After 1951, the Chinese introduced a hybrid government system known as the "co-existence of the three leading bodies." This structure included representatives from the Dalai Lama's Kashag, the Panchen Lama's Inner Office (Nangma Gang), and the traditional rulers of Kham west of the Drichu River, symbolized by Chamdo Phagpalha Gelek Namgyal. This arrangement institutionalized the existing tensions between Lhasa and Shigatse, reflecting the Chinese strategy of power-balancing in their governance of Tibet.

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Chapter 6 of Common Program

• Road to Common Program
• Common Program
• Bibliography
• Documents