Suiyuan () was a historical

province of China Provinces ( zh, c=省, p=Shěng) are the most numerous type of province-level divisions of China, province-level divisions in the China, People's Republic of China (PRC). There are currently 22 provinces administered by the PRC and one prov ...

. Suiyuan's capital was Guisui (now

Hohhot Hohhot,; abbreviated zh, c=呼市, p=Hūshì, labels=no formerly known as Kweisui, is the Capital (political), capital of Inner Mongolia in the North China, north of the China, People's Republic of China, serving as the region's administrativ ...

). The abbreviation was (

pinyin Hanyu Pinyin, or simply pinyin, officially the Chinese Phonetic Alphabet, is the most common romanization system for Standard Chinese. ''Hanyu'' () literally means 'Han Chinese, Han language'—that is, the Chinese language—while ''pinyin' ...

: ). The area Suiyuan covered is approximated today by the prefecture-level cities of

Baotou Baotou; is the largest city by urban population in Inner Mongolia, China. Governed as a prefecture-level city, as of the 2020 census, its built-up (''or metro'') area made up of its 5 urban districts is home to 2,261,089 people with a total po ...

, Wuhai, Ordos, Bayan Nur, and parts of Ulanqab, all today part of Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region. Suiyuan was named after a district in the capital established in the

Qing Dynasty The Qing dynasty ( ), officially the Great Qing, was a Manchu-led Dynasties of China, imperial dynasty of China and an early modern empire in East Asia. The last imperial dynasty in Chinese history, the Qing dynasty was preceded by the ...

. In the early 1930s Suiyuan was occupied by the

Shanxi Shanxi; Chinese postal romanization, formerly romanised as Shansi is a Provinces of China, province in North China. Its capital and largest city of the province is Taiyuan, while its next most populated prefecture-level cities are Changzhi a ...

warlord Yan Xishan, who mined Suiyuan's iron, reorganized the province's finances, and brought over of land under cultivation for the first time. Most of the work and settlement of Suiyuan at this time was done by Shanxi farmer-soldiers under the direction of retired officers from Yan's army. Yan's control of Suiyuan was sufficient to cause one visiting reporter to refer to Suiyuan as a "colony" of Shanxi. The

Suiyuan campaign The Suiyuan campaign (; ) was an attempt by the Inner Mongolian Army and Grand Han Righteous Army, two forces founded and supported by the Empire of Japan, to take control of the Suiyuan province from the Republic of China (1912–1949), Republic ...

took place in Suiyuan during the

Second Sino-Japanese War The Second Sino-Japanese War was fought between the Republic of China (1912–1949), Republic of China and the Empire of Japan between 1937 and 1945, following a period of war localized to Manchuria that started in 1931. It is considered part ...

. It became a part of the

puppet state A puppet state, puppet régime, puppet government or dummy government is a State (polity), state that is ''de jure'' independent but ''de facto'' completely dependent upon an outside Power (international relations), power and subject to its ord ...

of Mengjiang from 1937 to 1945 under

Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...

ese rule. During the

Chinese Civil War The Chinese Civil War was fought between the Kuomintang-led Nationalist government, government of the Republic of China (1912–1949), Republic of China and the forces of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Armed conflict continued intermitt ...

in 1935, Communist leader

Mao Zedong Mao Zedong pronounced ; traditionally Romanization of Chinese, romanised as Mao Tse-tung. (26December 18939September 1976) was a Chinese politician, revolutionary, and political theorist who founded the People's Republic of China (PRC) in ...

promised Mongol leaders a "unified autonomous" administration which would include all "historic" Mongol lands within China, in exchange for Mongol support against the

Kuomintang The Kuomintang (KMT) is a major political party in the Republic of China (Taiwan). It was the one party state, sole ruling party of the country Republic of China (1912-1949), during its rule from 1927 to 1949 in Mainland China until Retreat ...

. This promise included the declaration that, "Under no circumstances should other on-Mongol ethnic groupsbe allowed to occupy the land of the Inner Mongolian nation". However, following the communist victory in 1949, the administrators of the soon-to-be "Mongolian" territories with

Han Chinese The Han Chinese, alternatively the Han people, are an East Asian people, East Asian ethnic group native to Greater China. With a global population of over 1.4 billion, the Han Chinese are the list of contemporary ethnic groups, world's la ...

majorities, the biggest of which was Suiyuan with a population of over 2 million, resisted annexation by the new Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region. In 1954, Mao reached a compromise with Suiyuan, which involved the Mongols' taking over the administration of Suiyuan, but stipulated that the Han natives not be expelled from the territory. Uradyn Bulag thus notes that "ironically", the Mongols' territorial ambitions against Suiyuan resulted in their becoming a "small minority within their own nlargedautonomous region".

In popular culture

* W. Douglas Burden references Suiyuan in his book ''Look to the Wilderness'', in the chapter "On the Sino-Mongolian Frontier".

References

{{coord, 40.8106, 111.652, display=title Provinces of the Republic of China (1912–1949) Former provinces of China Geography of Inner Mongolia History of Inner Mongolia 1954 disestablishments in China

In popular culture

See also

References