Telephone Reporting Points from Comrade Xu Huang, Deputy Director of the Department of Consular Affairs of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs

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Telephone Reporting Points from Comrade Xu Huang, Deputy Director of the Department of Consular Affairs of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs

[To] Vice Minister of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Zhang [Hanfu]:

Comrade Xu Huang has just returned to Wulumuqi [Urumqi] from Yining [Gulja]. The situation of the mass exodus from the Yili [Ili] area is very serious. On the evening of 20 April, 80 people fled Yining, [then] early on 21 April, 150 people [fled]. On 20 April, 500 people fled Tacheng [Qoqek]. According to the estimates of the Yili Prefectural Party Committee, the trend of the mass exodus is still developing. At present, vigorous political propaganda work is being carried out, but has not been able to stop the trend of the mass exodus.

There are two types of reasons behind the mass exodus. The first is difficulties in livelihood. From the perspective of livelihood supplies,^[1] food rations are 25 catties per person, no small number. But industrial products are in relatively short [supply]; some daily necessities cannot be purchased, and the masses have a view [on this]. The other is political reasons. At present there are many rumors [circulating] among the masses, some of which say that certain persons who led the Three Districts Revolution^[2] are already here in a certain ravine and want to lead a Uyghur revolt; others say that Sai Fuding [Säypiddin Äzizi] has capitulated and only Wang Enmao is in charge, [so] the Hans must be killed. The activities of the Soviet Consul in Yining have also had a role [in the mass exodus]. In one day, the Consul met with a thousand people in Tacheng, and many of these people discussed, one after another, that they wanted to go to the Soviet Union and registered as Soviet nationals.

The [Xinjiang Uyghur] Autonomous Region Party Committee has controlled communications from the 22nd Party Congress [of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union] fairly tightly, but some Soviet nationality cadres, upon hearing Premier Zhou [Enlai’s] transmission, returned to the Soviet Union.

Comrade Xu Huang will go to Southern Xinjiang again to understand the situation [there] and will return to Wulumuqi sometime prior to the 1st of May.

Xu Huang

9:00 a.m., 21 April 1962

Wulumuqi

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[1] In Chinese, “shenghuo gongyingpin.”

[2] Or the East Turkestan Republic (ETR), a short-lived independent regime in northern Xinjiang which existed from 1944-1950.