Institute of Pacific Relations

China's Losing Game in MongoliaAuthor(s): James BurkeSource: Far Eastern Survey, Vol. 17, No. 13 (Jul. 7, 1948), pp. 156-157Published by: Institute of Pacific RelationsStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3021684 .

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CHINA'S LOSING GAME IN MONGOLIA

BY JAMES BURKE

There are two divergent opinions about the Mon- ? gols. (1) They are unimportant people because

there are only about five million of them all told, in-

cluding those scattered through Northwest China and the Soviet Union, a number without much significance in modern power politics or war. (2) They are impor? tant because they are the sole inhabitants of vast areas which are strategically significant both as springboards for attack and as cushions for defense.

The Communists?in Russia and in China?have tended to act on the latter principle and with fairly outstanding success. By their willingness to utilize the

Mongols, the Communists have Outer Mongolia firmly in hand, have dominant influence among the Manchu-

rian, or Eastern, Mongols, and are in the process now of swallowing up the rest of Inner Mongolia.

The steady loser in all this has been the Chinese Na? tional Government, which in general practice seems to have adopted the thesis that the Mongols are an insig- nificant and inferior people who should be ignored or

subordinated within local Chinese administrative areas. This negative attitude has been particularly apparent in Inner Mongolia since the end of the war.

Japan, also realistic about utilizing the Mongols, had built up a Mongol regime1 and army during her occu?

pation of Inner Mongolia. When the Japanese surrcn-

dered, that part of the Mongol puppet army in the west

?about 20,000 men in Suiyuan Province?was available

to the National Government. These Mongol troops were

the main garrison forces in the cities of Kwcisui and

Paotow, holding them against stifF communist sieges until General Fu Tso-yi, the National Government's Inner Mongolian commander (now suprcme commander in North China), could take over with his army.

Once Suiyuan was safely in his hands, General Fu, who shares the prevalent Chinese blind spot for the border peoples, began disbanding the Mongol troops. Keeping their arms, he sent the men back to their

homes where they could neither serve him nor defend

themselves against the Communists. When I visited

Suiyuan this spring there were less than 1,500 of the

original 20,000 Mongols still in National Government forces there.

The National Government has also discouraged fur- ther attempts by the Mongols to achieve unified local

autonomy in Inner Mongolia. Mongol representatives at the 1946 National Assembly at Nanking tried in vain to get their proposals for home rule incorporated in the new Chinese Constitution, then being drawn up. What the Mongols want is a self-governing body embracing all leagues and banners of Inner Mongolia. All they have now is a limited Self-Government Committee for the Suiyuan Leagues and Banners.2

Even this committee, though nominally free from interference from the Suiyuan Provincial Government and responsible only to the National Government at

Nanking, has been unable to prevent continuing en- croachment by the provincial government upon Suiyuan Mongol territory. Only recently a new chu, or special administrative district, was set up by the provincial government at Toliming in the southern part of Hangin Banner in the Ihkecho League. In the past this has been the first step toward carving out a new hsien, or

district, from Mongol territory. Teh Wang, who still enjoys great popularity among

non-communist Mongols and who could head a unified Inner Mongol government which might be of some real service to the National Government in opposing com-

munism, is kept under surveillance in Peiping. The Chinese continue to smart over his association with the

Japanese and refuse to trust him, although it seems obvious that he would never join the Communists. In a

press conference last fall, General Fu Tso-yi referred to him as he would to a naughty boy?Chinese tend to look

upon Mongols as irresponsible children?and said that the Prince must sit and think over his mistakes a while

longer. Another indication of the National Government's

attitude toward the Mongols came with the distribution of UNRRA supplies. CNRRA, the government's agency which administered the relief program in China, was set up to operate only through Chinese local govern-

Mr. Burke, author of My Father in China, has spent sixteen years in China. During the past year he has made three exten- sive trips in Inner Mongolia.

1 The Menkiang government at Kalgan is an outgrowth of the Inner Mongolian Political Council which Teh Wang (Prince Demchukdonggrob) and other energetic Mongol lead? ers talked the Chinese into establishing in 1932. The council swung over to the Japanese in 1935 after promises of regional autonomy convinced the Mongols they had more to gain from Japan than from China.

2 This Committee dates back to 1936, when it split away from the Japanese-influenced Teh Wang group. It remained loyal to the National Government during the war and is now located at Kung Miao, west of Paotow. Its executive secretary and moving spirit is a French-educated Tumet Mongol who goes by the Chinese name Pa Wen-chiin.

156 FAR EASTERN SURVEY

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ments?i.e., provinces and districts. Mongol banner gov- ernments were either side-stepped or given merely token

supplies. "Those supplies that did reach [the Mongols] were composed largely of goods that had no ready ap- peal to the blackmarket. In Inner Mongolia today one can see evening dresses, light cotton fabrics and slippers in subzero climate, making a tragic burlesque of UN- RRA's aid."3

The China Relief Mission of the Department of State in inaugurating its Mongol relief project earlier this year took pains to right this UNRRA-CNRRA mis- take by dealing directly with the Mongols. In Suiyuan, where most of the Mongol relief work centers, the Americans decided to deal through the above-men- tioned Mongol Self-Government Committee rather than

through a mixed Mongol-Chinese committee as the

provincial government proposed. This American "rec-

ognition" has done more to strengthen the position of the Mongol Committee vis-a-vis the provincial govern? ment than anything Nanking has done.

A Contrast in Policy

In contrast to the National Government's negative course, the Russians and the Chinese Communists have followed quite a different policy toward the Mongols. They have not permitted potential leaders whom they could use to remain idly under surveillance. They have made use of the Japanese-created Mongol puppet troops that came their way, but not to abandon them later.

They have had method and purpose. While the Russians were occupying Inner Mongolia

during the last months of 1945, they carefully set in motion forces to overturn the established order. Lama

temples were destroyed and old-line officials and prop- ertied men were hauled up before "people's courts." When the Soviet Union withdrew from Inner Mongo? lia at the end of the year, its forces carried off most of the livestock and other removable wealth that lay in their path?a methodical stripping, as in Manchuria, obviously designed to prostrate the country econom-

ically. The effects of this were still evident when I traveled the old Urga Road from Kalgan to Chapser in the summer of 1947.4 Entire villages lay bare and

crumbling, their populations scattered to places which the Russians had missed looting.

The Russians also carried off several thousand peo? ple, some as disciples and some as hostages. Among

the latter were the wife and children of Teh Wang, who has had no word from them since. Among the the disciples was the man whom the Soviets had selected to be one of their principal tools in Inner Mongolia? Ulji Ocher, former commander of the Ninth Division of the Japanese-sponsored Mongol army.

Ulji Ocher went to Outer Mongolia with about 200 of his men when the Russians withdrew. They remained in Ulan Bator (Urga) about four months, then returned to Inner Mongolia, still equipped with their Japanese arms. They established themselves at Chaganbogda in West Sunid to begin organizing a military force and soon were in control of all ten banners of the Silingol League in northern Chahar. The Mongols were helpless to resist, for the Russians had stripped them of guns as well as cattle. There was no escape, because the Chinese Communists were on the south, at Kalgan and the southern part of the Chahar plateau.

After General Fu Tso-yi drove the Chinese Reds from

Kalgan and the Chahar plateau area in late 1946, flocks of Mongol refugees began coming down from

the northern area which Ulji Ocher had been terroriz-

ing. Their leaders have repeatedly expressed willingness to attempt to recover Silingol from the Mongol Reds if the Chinese will give them the necessary arms. But the National Government, and particularly Fu Tso-yi, have remained unresponsive.

Now it seems almost too late, for the Mongol Com? munists have had time thoroughly to entrench them? selves in the Silingol, and the Chinese Communists are

threatening to push back onto the Chahar plateau from

Jehol Province.

Meanwhile in Eastern, or Manchurian, Mongolia, the Chinese Communists have been working through Yun Tseh (also known by his Mongolian name Ulan-

fu), a Moscow-educated Tumet Mongol. In the spring of 1947 he organized a united Inner Mongolian gov? ernment at Wangyehmiao with himself as chairman and with representatives from all Inner and Eastern Mon?

golian areas?including those areas still in National Government hands. He thus accomplished through Chinese Communist backing what the National Gov? ernment has refused to permit the anti-communist Mon?

gols to do.

The National Government's policy in Mongolia is, if

somewhat difficult to understand, at least consistent. De?

velopments in Manchuria were similar. There Nanking also refused to organize and utilize the local inhabi?

tants, including Japanese-trained Manchurian troops,

preferring to send in unacclimatized troops from the

south to take over the Northeastern Provinces. The

Communists chose to utilize the Manchurians; and Manchuria has been practically written off to the Com?

munists?as all of Mongolia will soon be if the present

pace of events continues.

3 From a North American Newspaper Alliance article by Wallace Johnston, Washington Star, February 22, 1948.

4 While the Chinese Inner Mongolian frontier is nominally the Outer Mongolian border, the real frontier is a line run- ning roughly from Pailingmiao on the west through Shangtu and Chapser to Dolun Nor. Everything north of that is out of the National Government control, and even Dolun Nor was briefly occupied by the Reds in April 1948.

JULY 7, I 948 157

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