Saifuddin Azizi

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Saifuddin Azizi
赛福鼎·艾则孜
سەيپىدىن ئەزىزى
CCP Committee Secretary of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region
In office
July 1972 – January 1978
(Acting: July 1972 – June 1973)
Preceded byLong Shujin
Succeeded byWang Feng
Chairman of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Regional Revolutionary Committee
In office
October 1955 – January 1967
Preceded byBurhan Shahidi
(as Governor of Xinjiang)
Succeeded byLong Shujin
Other positions
Vice Chairman of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference
In office
15 March 1993 – 5 March 1998
Vice Chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress
In office
15 September 1954 – 15 March 1993
Chairman of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Regional Political Consultative Conference
In office
February 1955 – September 1955
Preceded byBurhan Shahidi
Succeeded byBurhan Shahidi
Minister of Education of the East Turkestan Republic
In office
13 March 1945 – 27 June 1946
Preceded byHabib Yunich
Personal details
Born(1915-03-12)12 March 1915
Artush, Xinjiang
Died24 November 2003(2003-11-24) (aged 88)
Beijing, China
NationalityChinese
Political partyChinese Communist Party (joined 1949)
Other political
affiliations		All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) (1935–1949)
Democratic Revolutionary Party (1947–1948)
East Turkestan Revolutionary Party (1946–1947)
Awards Order of Liberation (First Class)
Military service
Allegiance
Branch/service
Rank Lieutenant General of the PLA
Battles/warsIli Rebellion (1944–1946)
Chinese name
Simplified Chinese赛福鼎·艾则孜
Traditional Chinese賽福鼎·艾則孜
Uyghur name
Uyghurسەيپىدىن ئەزىزى‎
Russian name
RussianСайфутдин Азизов
RomanizationSayfutdin Azizov

Saifuddin Azizi (officially transcribed as Seypidin Azizi;[1][2] 12 March 1915 – 24 November 2003) was a Chinese politician who occupied several top positions in the government of the People's Republic of China (PRC). An ethnic Uyghur, he is most well-known for serving as the first chairman of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. Before the proclamation of the PRC in 1949, he served in the government of the breakaway Second East Turkestan Republic, as Minister of Education.

Biography[edit]

Azizi was born in Tacheng to an influential Uyghur trader family originally from Artux (Artush).[3][4] He attended school in Xinjiang and then moved to the Soviet Union, joining the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) and studying at the Central Asia Political Institute in Tashkent.[5] He returned to Xinjiang as a Soviet agent, instigating the Soviet-backed Ili Rebellion against the Republic of China government in northwest Xinjiang. He served as Minister of Education in the Second East Turkestan Republic and Commissioner of Education in the Zhang Zhizhong Ili Rebel-Kuomintang coalition government from 1945–1948.[3] In September 1949, Saifuddin attended the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference endorsed by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), becoming a member of the new Communist government.[6] In October, the 1949 Chinese revolution brought the Communists to power in Xinjiang and in China more generally; at this point, Saifuddin held various posts for Nationalities and Political and Legal Affairs for the new government.[3]

From December 1949 through January 1950, he accompanied Mao Zedong in his trip to Moscow to negotiate the Sino-Soviet Treaty of Friendship and it was there on 27 December 1949 where he quit the CPSU and joined the CCP in accordance with recommendation of Mao himself. In 1955, he was given the rank of Lieutenant General of the PLA. In the same year, he registered with Mao his strong objection to proposals to name Xinjiang the "Xinjiang Autonomous Region", arguing that "autonomy is not given to mountains and rivers. It is given to particular nationalities". As a result, the administrative region would be named "Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region".[7]

Uyghur linguist Ibrahim Muti'i opposed the Second East Turkestan Republic and was against the Ili Rebellion because it was backed by the Soviets and Stalin. Saifuddin Azizi later apologized to Ibrahim and admitted that his opposition to the East Turkestan Republic was the correct thing to do.[8]

At the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) in Beijing, he secured the role of regional Chairman of Xinjiang, a job he kept from 1955 to 1978, with a brief respite during the Cultural Revolution.[9] He was a vice chairman of the Standing Committee of the First through Seventh National People's Congress and an alternate member of the Politburo of the Chinese Communist Party of the 10th and 11th CCP Central Committee.[2] From 1993 to 1998, he served as a vice-chairman of the CPPCC National Committee.[10] He died of illness at the age of 88.[2]

References[edit]

  1. ^ "Yu Zhengsheng attends symposium commemorating Seypidin Azizi". www.cppcc.gov.cn. National Committee of Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference.
  2. ^ a b c "Noted Uygur leader Seypidin Azizi dies". People's Daily. 25 November 2003.
  3. ^ a b c McMillen, Donald H. (1979). Chinese Communist Power and Policy in Xinjiang, 1949-1977. Westview Press. pp. 34–36. ISBN 978-0-89158-452-0.
  4. ^ Donald W. Klein; Anne B. Clark (1968). Biographic Dictionary of Chinese Communism, 1921-1965. Vol. 2. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. p. 743. ISBN 978-0-674-14850-5 – via Internet Archive.
  5. ^ Xinjiang: China's Muslim Borderland by S. Frederick Starr
  6. ^ Benson, Linda; Ingvar Svanberg (1998). China's last Nomads: the history and culture of China's Kazaks. M.E. Sharpe. p. 100.
  7. ^ Bovingdon, Gardner (2010). The Uyghurs: Strangers in Their Own Land. Columbia University Press. p. 199.
  8. ^ Clark, William (2011). "Ibrahim's story" (PDF). Asian Ethnicity. 12 (2). Taylor & Francis: 213. doi:10.1080/14631369.2010.510877. ISSN 1463-1369. S2CID 145009760. Retrieved 4 August 2016.
  9. ^ Dillon, Michael (2004). Xinjiang: China's Muslim far northwest. Routledge. p. 79.
  10. ^ China Vitae Accessed 30 October 2010
Government offices
Preceded by Chairman of Xinjiang
1955–1967 		Succeeded by
Preceded by Chairman of Xinjiang
1972–1978 		Succeeded by
Party political offices
Preceded by Secretary of the CCP Xinjiang Committee
1972–1978 		Succeeded by
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