Po Ku

Background

The name Saifudin is a Chinese corruption of Saif-al-din Azia (or Seyfudin Azizov, the Russian variant), and it is transliterated into Chinese as Sai Fu-ting. The name Saifudin is a Chinese corruption of Saif-al-din Azia (or Seyfudin Azizov, the Russian variant), and it is transliterated into Chinese as Sai Fu-ting.The son of a businessman, he was born into a Uighur Muslim family in the small town of Artush (A-t'u-shih), located about 15 miles northwest of Kashgar, not far from the Russian border. Kashgar is the major city on the western edge of the vast Tarim Basin and the home of the agricultural Uighurs, a Turkic people. In times past the city was the scene of Muslim revolt against Chinese authority, and it continues to be a center of racial tensions.

Education

Saifudin grew up in a central Asian society that was not Chinese. Because his Uighur Muslim family could afford to give him a good education, he learned Russian and Chinese, as well as his native Turkic language. Chinese is said to be his weakest language. He apparently graduated from a college in Sinkiang before seeking further education in the Soviet Union, where he is known to have spent some time at the Central Asian Political Institute in Tashkent, a school that enrolled a number of students from Chinese Turkistan in the years before World War II. Saifudin joined the Russian Communist Party during these student days, and he probably continued his membership in the CPSU until 1950 when he joined the CCP.

Career

In 1961 Saifudin wrote that “Beginning in 1933, the Party sent many outstanding Party members and cadres at different times to carry out revolutionary work in Sinkiang, thus sowing the seed of revolution on a broad front.’’ Well before this account was published there were Japanese reports that in 1932 Saifudin himself had participated in Turkie rebel movements in western Sinkiang, an indication that if sent by “the Party,” he must have received his orders from the CPSU. In November 1933 the ''Eastern Turkistan Republic” was established in Kashgar, some 1,000 road miles from the provincial capital at Tihwa (Urumchi). Saifudin was reported to have held office in the new government whose Turki leaders were in revolt against the Chinese authorities at Tihwa. The establishment of the republic, took place just at the time when Sheng Shih-ts’ai was consolidating his authority in Tihwa. Sheng, a professional officer of Manchurian origin, had accomplished this feat with Soviet support, and it was also with Soviet backing that he was able to expand his power throughout Sinkiang and into the territory of the “Eastern Turkistan Republic.” The Muslim leaders of the “Republic” received encouragement at different times from the British, the Russians, and the Japanese, all of whom had interests of their own in controlling the politics of Sinkiang. In the latter half of 1934, when Sheng Shih-ts'ai crushed the rebellion at Kashgar with Soviet aid, “Republic” President Khoja Niaz made a temporary alliance with Sheng, while Sabil Mullah, the former premier, made an unsuccessful visit to Tokyo (1935) seeking help from the Japanese. When the rebellion was finally put down Saifudin fled back to the USSR, where he spent some time before going to live in Afghanistan. According to one report he did not return to Sinkiang until about 1943.

The Communists took over Sinkiang with little fighting. Burhan Shahidi, the prominent Uighur whom the Nationalists had appointed to succeed Masud Sabri as governor in December 1948, defected to the Communists in September 1949, and at the same time Sinkiang Garrison Commander T’ao Chih-yueh also went over to the Communists. The effects of these changes in allegiance were not immediately disruptive to the Tihwa administration, for the Communists rewarded Burhan by retaining him as the provincial governor, and T'o remained as deputy military commander of the Sinkiang Military District. On October 21, the first units of P’eng Te-huai’s First Field Army, the forces responsible for the takeover in the northwest, reached Tihwa under the command of veteran CCP military leader Wang Chen, who was the top Communist official in Sinkiang until 1952.

While a change of regimes was being effected in Sinkiang, the Communist central government was being installed in Peking at the inaugural session of the CPPCC in September 1949, which was attended by delegates from all parts of China. When the Sinkiang group arrived in Peking it numbered only three men (Saifudin among them), Akhmedjan and a group of his supporters were to have attended, but they were killed in an air crash en route to Peking. Saifudin took an active part in the CPPCC meetings, an indication that he was by then well known to the CCP, and perhaps also that it had plans in store for him. He served on the ad hoc committee to draft the Organic Law of the PRC and made a short speech in which he presented the Party view of the events that had transpired in Kuldja. The Kuldja rebellion, he explained, was not a movement against Chinese rule, but a “movement of liberation,” a “liberation” that would only be complete when the Communists were victorious throughout the mainland. At the close of the meetings Saifudin was elected as a “specially invited personage” to membership on the CPPCC First National Committee, a position he retained until the Second CPPCC was formed in late 1954.

After the central government was formed and staffed, Saifudin returned to Sinkiang where over the winter of 1949-50 he took part in the formation of both the Sinkiang Provincial Government and the regional government known as the Northwest Military and Administrative Committee (NWMAC). In the former he became a vice-governor (December) in an administration nominally headed by Burhan Shahidi. At the same time Saifudin was appointed chairman of the Sinkiang Nationalities Affairs Committee, thus making him the top provincial authority over the minority problems so important to Sinkiang. The NWMAC was established in January 1950 with headquarters at Sian; as a NWMAC member Saifudin must have spent part of the time between 1950 and 1954 in Sian as well as Tihwa (later Urumchi) and Peking. When the NWMAC was reorganized into the Northwest Administrative Committee (NWAC) in January 1953 he was elevated to a vicechairmanship, retaining this post until regional administrations were abolished in 1954 with the advent of the constitutional government. From 1950 to 1954 he was also a vice-chairman of the NWMAC-NWAC’s Nationalities Affairs Committee and from 1952 to 1954 he also served as a member of the regional Political and Legal Affairs Committee.

In addition to his role in the Sinkiang government administration, Saifudin has also participated in the military command for the province as well as in the aflfairs of the CCP organization there. When the Sinkiang Military District was set up in December 1949, P’eng Te-huai was named as commander, with Wang Chen, T'ao Chih-yueh, and Saifudin as deputy commanders. However, P’eng spent practically no time in Sinkiang, and T’ao was a defector from the Nationalist armies. In practice, therefore, Wang was the real head of the Sinkiang military establishment and Saifudin was his leading deputy. Wang Chen was later replaced by Wang En-mao and until at least the early sixties Saifudin remained as the top deputy commander. He was first identified in November 1952 in an administrative post with the CCP organization for Sinkiang, the Sinkiang Party Sub-bureau, where he was serving as fourth secretary under First Secretary Wang En-mao. Just two months before this identification the Communists set up a preparatory committee to transform Sinkiang from a provincial administration into an autonomus region the Sinkiang-Uighur Autonomous Region (SUAR). Burhan was the nominal chairman of the preparatory committee, but the real authority obviously rested with Saifudin (a vice-chairman) and Wang En-mao (a member). When the SUAR was finally inaugurated on October 1, 1955, with Politburo member Tung Pi-wu sent to the ceremonies as Peking’s official representative, Saifudin replaced Burhan as the top government administrator in Sinkiang, that is, as chairman of the new SUAR, a post he still retains. A few weeks later Saifudin relinquished the chairmanship of the Sinkiang chapter of the CPPCC to Burhan (a position the former had held from February 1955), but in contrast to the early fifties when the CPPCC was an organization of considerable importance, by 1955 it had become a quasi-legislative body with little or no power. At the same time that these changes were being made, the Sinkiang Party Sub-bureau was reorganized into the SUAR Party Committee. Within the space of a few months Saifudin advanced from fourth to second Party secretary and finally in early 1956 to a full secretaryship, although he continues to serve under First Secretary Wang En-mao. In summary, Saifudin soon emerged as the top man in the Sinkiang government structure and as number two man to Wang En-mao in both the Party and the military establishment. Then, at the Party’s Eighth National Congress in September 1956, he was elected an alternate member of the Party Central Committee. One of the youngest elected, he was among the very few non-Han Chinese and the only Uighur.

Politics

In December 1949 Mao Tse-tung had gone to Moscow to engage in the critical negotiations that led to a series of key treaties and agreements in the early months of 1950. He was joined by Chou En-lai on January 20, 1950, and 10 days later Saifudin arrived in Moscow leading a Sinkiang government delegation to participate in “commercial negotiations.” Immediately after the signing of the Sino-Soviet Treaty of Friendship, Alliance, and Mutual Assistance on February 14, Mao and Chou left for home, but a number of top officials, Saifudin among them, remained behind for further talks. He probably took part in negotiating two agreements (both signed March 27) related to Sinkiang, under which two joint stock companies were established in Sinkiang, one for the prospecting and refining of petroleum and the other for the exploitation of non-ferrous and rare metals. Both companies were jointly operated until the end of December 1954 when, in accordance with the agreements reached in Peking during the Khrushchev-Bulganin visit two months earlier, the Soviet shares were turned over to the Chinese. Saifudin was among the speakers in Urumchi on December 31 when the shares in the petroleum company were transferred to the Chinese.

Saifudin remained in Moscow until April 1950, and while he was there it was announced by the Chinese (February) that he had been admitted to the CCP. In June 1950, shortly after returning from Moscow, the Sinkiang League for the Protection of Peace and Democracy held a meeting with the announced goal of establishing a “democratic united front of the various nationalities of Sinkiang.” The name was changed to the Sinkiang People’s Democratic League, and Saifudin was made the chairman. The league was listed in the official 1951 Jen-min shou-ts’e (People's handbook) among the “democratic” political parties, placing it on par with the China Democratic League and the other better-known parties. However, nothing has been heard of the organization since that time; it seems probable that the Communists abolished it to preclude the league’s becoming a focal point for separatist tendencies in Sinkiang.

In the years since the mid-fifties, Saifudin has been almost as occupied by extracurricular activities as he has been by his particular fields of specialization. Two of his major activities outside his tasks within the Party and the government are the Communist-sponsored peace movement and the field of international relations as promoted by certain of the mass organizations known as “friendship associations.” identified in August 1955 as a Council member of the China- India Friendship Association, he may still retain the post, although the association has not been active since the outbreak of the border disputes between the two nations in the late fifties. In November 1956 he was selected for membership on the Council of the newly created China-Egypt Friendship Association, established in the wake of the international disturbances over the Suez Canal. In February 1958, following the merger of Egypt and Syria into the United Arab Republic, the name of the organization was changed to the China-UAR Friendship Association. Also in the field of international relations, when the Asian Solidarity Committee of China was formed in February 1956 Saifudin became a member, retaining his membership after May 1958 when it was renamed the Afro-Asian Solidarity Committee. In all these organizations it is likely that his central Asian background and Muslim heritage are useful in developing relations with nations having large Muslim populations. As a representative of China's national minorities, he has also been useful in work with the Soviet Union which has its own problems with minorities and their integration into a Communist system. In 1950 Saifudin became a vice-chairman of the Sino-Soviet Friendship Association’s (SSFA) Sinkiang branch. Technically he still retains this post, but the SSFA has become relatively inactive since relations between China and the USSR became openly hostile. At the Second National SSFA Conference in December 1954, he was elected a vice-chairman of the SSFA, and he was reelected at the Third Conference in May 1959. Saifudin’s connections with the peace movement go back to October 1949 when he became a member of the newly established national China Peace Committee, he retained his membership until the Committee was reorganized in July 1958. By 1953 he was also a vice-chairman of the Peace Committee Sinkiang branch, a position he may still retain.

Connections

In private life Saifudin is married to A-i-mu (Ahyimu), whose name suggests that she is of Uighur origin. He has a daughter, born about 1938, who knows Russian and was apparently reared in the Soviet Union, because when she enrolled in Peking University in the late fifties she was placed in a special department for students unfamiliar with Chinese. About the year 1960, after two years’ study, she entered the university’s Chinese Language Department.

Spouse:

A-i-mu (Ahyimu)