politician vice-govenor of Szechwan
The name Sang-chi-yueh-hsi is derived from the Chinese pronunciation of a Tibetan name. His less frequently used Chinese name is T’ien Pao. He was born in the small town of Tang-pa on the Ta-chin River in north Szechwan, close to the border of the former province of Sikang. He and two brothers were said to have been Tibetan lamas and thus must have had some early education under Buddhist auspices.
He was educated locally.
Before the Long March the Chinese Communists had very little contact with Tibetans, it was not until the Red armies pushed through western China that they encountered Tibetan minorities living in Sikang, Szechwan, and Kansu. At that time a few Tibetans joined the Red armies, the most prominent of these being Sang-chi-yueh-hsi. Mao Tse-tung’s First Front Army met Chang Kuo-fao's Fourth Front Army at Mao-kung, Szechwan, in June 1935. The armies then marched north through the Tang-pa area to Mao-erh-kai, which was a center for Tibetans living in northwest Szechwan. The Communists did not endear themselves to the Tibetans, because they were then very short of supplies and forced the Tibetans to surrender stores of food. They even broke into the local lamaseries for rice and flour. At Mao-erh-kai, Chang and Mao held a final conference, at which they were unable to agree on future strategy (see under Chang Kuo-fao). In August 1935 Mao proceeded north toward Shensi, while Chang remained temporarily in Szechwan and then turned west into Sikang, the home of other large Tibetan colonies. In September Chang's army passed through the Szechwan town of A-pa, which is now located in one of the provincial Tibetan autonomous chou. Returning to Mao-erh-kai, the Communists met Nationalist troops and were driven west into Sikang, again passing near Tang-pa before making their winter headquarters in the lamasery town of Kan-tzu on the upper reaches of the Ya-lung River. Sang- chi-yueh-hsi, then about 18, joined Chang's Fourth Front Army as it moved through his home area.
In mid-1936 the Fourth Front Army was joined by the Second Front Army of Ho Lung and Jen Pi-shih, which had been forced to retreat from its base in western Hunan late in 1935. Li Hsien-nien, serving in Chang's army, was responsible for promoting cooperation between the Communists and the Kan-tzu Tibetans, enabling the Communists to purchase food and eventually to establish a small Communist area, a “Tibetan People’s Government” known as Po-pa-i-t’e-wa Soviet Government. Sang-chi- yueh-hsi was director of the Youth Department of this government and belonged to a youth vanguard unit there. (His only other connection with youth work occurred in 1949 when he attended an important youth congress held in Peking.) Nationalist forces drove the Communist armies from Kan-tzu in May 1936, but they left Tibetan converts behind, many of whom were later given posts in a Tibetan autonomous chou established in Szechwan in November 1950. The Communist armies which left Kan-tzu and Sikang included a newly formed independent division from the Po-pa Soviet, with Sang-chi-yueh-hsi serving as its political commissar. Thus, he was with Chang's armies when they joined Mao Tse-tung in north Shensi late in 1936.
After the central government was established, Sang-chi-yueh-hsi returned to his native southwest China where he played an even more active part in the formation of the government and Party organizations for the area. Apart from Tibet proper, all of the southwest was conquered by the PLA by early 1950. To govern the area, in July 1950 the Communists set up the Southwest Military and Administrative Committee (SWMAC), embracing the provinces of Szechwan, Sikang, Kweichow, and Yunnan, under the chairmanship of Liu Po-ch’eng who had led the Red armies into the southwest. Sang-chi-yueh-hsi was named to membership on the SWMAC and he was also appointed a vice-chairman of the SWMACs Nationalities Affairs Committee, he retained both posts when the SWMAC was reorganized into the Southwest Administrative Committee (SWAC) in February 1953, continuing to serve there until it was dissolved in November 1954. However, his major assignment was as the chief Party representative in those sections of western Szechwan and Sikang, where there is a large Tibetan population and where the Communists have established two of their local autonomous Tibetan governments. From October 1950 to January 1955 he was a member of the Sikang Provincial Peopled Government; he was promoted to a vice-governorship in January 1955, holding this post until October 1955 when Sikang
was abolished and most of the territory was incorporated into Szechwan. Concurrently, from its establishment in November 1950 he served as chairman of the Tibetan Autonomous District in Sikang province, which had its capital at K'ang- ting, 50 miles west of the Sikang capital of Ya-an. The status of this district was elevated in 1955 to the Tibetan Autonomous Chou. Finally, when Sikang was absorbed by Szechwan in 1955, this area became the Kan-tzu Tibetan Autonomous Chou of Szechwan. By the time of the change in 1955 from district to chou status, the capital had been transferred from K’ang-ting to Kan-tzu hsien, 150 miles northwest of K'ang-ting. However, in about 1957 K'ang-tung was restored as the capital. Sang-chi-yueh-hsi was, of course, familiar with Kan-tzu because of his experience there in the mid-1930’s. He served as the first secretary of the chou Party Committee from at least 1957, but was replaced by early 1963. He also became head of another autonomous area established in December 1952, the Tibetan Autonomous District of northwestern Szechwan, which included his native town of Tang-pa. In December 1956, following the inclusion of Sikang in Szechwan, this Tibetan area was renamed the A-pa Tibetan Autonomous Chou of Szechwan. The capital had originally been in Mao-hsien, but it was later changed to Shua-ching-szu, and finally (in the spring of 1958) to its present site at Ma- erh-k'ang.
As already described, Sang-chi-yueh-hsi served as a member of the Sikang Provincial People’s Government from 1950 to 1955, and from January 1955 to October 1955 as a provincial vicegovernor. Concurrently, in November 1952, he was named to membership on the Szechwan Provincial People's Government; the reason for this unusual duality derives from the fact that he was heading autonomous Tibetan districts in both provinces. Then, in December 1955, following the abolition of Sikang, he was made one of the Szechwan vice-governors, a post he continues to hold. He has also served as a member of the Standing Committee of the Szechwan Party Committee since mid-1958 and as chairman of the Szechwan Nationalities Affairs Committee since 1959.
Although Sang-chi-yueh-hsi's principal contributions to the CCP have been in the southwest where he spends most of his time, he has also continued to hold posts in the national government. As already noted, he was a member of the Nationalities Affairs Commission under the Government Administration Council (the executive branch) from 1949 to 1954. When the constitutional government came into being in 1954, he continued his work in this field, but now as a member of the Nationalities Committee under the NPC, he was elevated to a vice-chairmanship in June 1956.
By 1939 Sang-chi-yueh-hsi was a member of the First Assembly of the Shensi-Kansu-Ninghsia (Shen-Kan-Ning) Border Region Government, whose headquarters was in Yenan. However, he was not on the Second Assembly, which opened in November 1941. In 1944 he graduated with the first class of the Yenan Nationalities Institute, the Communist training school for national minority leaders, which was opened in 1941 with Kao K’o-lin as vice-president and Ulanfu as head of the Education Department. At some time during the Sino-Japanese War (probably before he enrolled at the Institute) Sang-chi-yueh- hsi served in Liu Po-ch'eng's 129th Division of the Eighth Route Army and was wounded in action.
After the war ended in 1945 he fought in northwest China against a member of the famous Muslim Ma family, as well as the forces of General Hu Tsung-nan, the Nationalist Pacification Commissioner for Shensi from 1946 to 1949. In the postwar period and as late as 1949 he belonged to the Nationalities Affairs Committee of the Shen-Kan-Ning Border Region Government. He was also rather active in the establishment of the national government on October 1, 1949. In June 1949 a preparatory committee was formed to lay the groundwork for the convocation of the First CPPCC in September. Sang-chi-yueh-hsi was a member of this preparatory committee, which included some of the Party's top leaders. When the CPPCC was convened in September, several ad hoc committees were established, one of which was the Committee to Draft the Organic Law of the CPPCC, a key document adopted at that time. He served as a member of the committee and also spoke before the conference, urging all Tibetans to assist the PLA in the complete liberation of the mainland-comments made a year prior to the invasion of Tibet by the PLA in 1950. He also warned Indian Prime Minister Nehru against being used by the English and American “imperialists” who were “plotting an invasion” of Tibet.
At the close of the First CPPCC in September 1949, he was elected to membership on the First National Committee as a representative of the national minorities, in February 1953 (at the fourth session of the CPPCC) he was elevated to the Standing Committee, holding both these seats until the close of the First CPPCC in late 1954. In October 1949 he was also appointed a member of the Nationalities Affairs Commission under the Government Administration Council (the cabinet), a position subordinate to Party veteran Li Wei-han.
