Rashida ( zh, 拉希達, 1912 – 26 March 1990) was a Uyghur Chinese politician. She was one of the first group of women elected to the

Legislative Yuan The Legislative Yuan is the unicameral legislature of the Republic of China (Taiwan) located in Taipei. The Legislative Yuan is composed of 113 members, who are directly elected for 4-year terms by people of the Taiwan Area through a parallel v ...

of the

Republic of China Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the northeast ...

in 1948.

Biography

Rashida (sometimes romanised 'La-hsi-ta') was from

Yining County Yining County ( zh, s=伊宁县) as the official romanized name, also transliterated from Uyghur as Gulja County ( ug, غۇلجا ناھىيىسى; zh, s=固勒扎县), is a county within the Ili Kazakh Autonomous Prefecture of the Xinjiang Uyg ...

Xinjiang Xinjiang, SASM/GNC: ''Xinjang''; zh, c=, p=Xīnjiāng; formerly romanized as Sinkiang (, ), officially the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region (XUAR), is an autonomous region of the People's Republic of China (PRC), located in the northwest ...

. She attended Tashkent Normal University of Technology in the

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...

, graduating in 1933. In 1937 she began working at the Xinjiang Consulate in

Zaysan Zaysan or Zaisan ( Cyrillic: Зайсан) can refer to: *Lake Zaysan in eastern Kazakhstan * Zaysan (town) or Zaisan, Kazakhstan * Zaysan District in East Kazakhstan Province, Kazakhstan *Zaisan Memorial The Zaisan Memorial ( mn, Зайсан) ...

, a border town in the Soviet Union. After returning to China, she worked as a middle school teacher and headteacher. She also became deputy director of the Xinjiang Women's Federation, joined the

Kuomintang The Kuomintang (KMT), also referred to as the Guomindang (GMD), the Nationalist Party of China (NPC) or the Chinese Nationalist Party (CNP), is a major political party in the Republic of China, initially on the Chinese mainland and in Tai ...

and married

Burhan Shahidi Burhan Shahidi ( ug, بۇرھان شەھىدى, برهان شهيدي, translit=Burhan Shehidi; zh, s=包尔汉·沙希迪, t=包爾漢·沙希迪, p=Bāo'érhàn·Shāxīdí; russian: Бурхан Шахиди; tt-Cyrl, Борһан Шәһид ...

, a prominent Uyghur politician. In the 1948 elections to the Legislative Yuan, ten seats were elected by the Education Association, of which two were reserved for women. Rashida was chosen to fill one of the two women's seats, becoming one of the first group of women to enter the Chinese parliament. After the

Chinese Civil War The Chinese Civil War was fought between the Kuomintang-led government of the Republic of China and forces of the Chinese Communist Party, continuing intermittently since 1 August 1927 until 7 December 1949 with a Communist victory on m ...

, she became deputy head of the Children's Welfare Department of the

All-China Women's Federation The All-China Women's Federation (ACWF; ) is a women's rights people's organization established in China on 24 March 1949. It was originally called the All-China Democratic Women's Foundation, and was renamed the All-China Women's Federation in ...

, served as a member of the All-China Women's Federation Presidium, and was a delegate to the second to seventh National Committee of the

Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference The Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC, zh, 中国人民政治协商会议), also known as the People's PCC (, ) or simply the PCC (), is a political advisory body in the People's Republic of China and a central part of ...

. A member of the standing committee of the

Islamic Association of China The Islamic Association of China () is the official government supervisory organ for Islam in the People's Republic of China. The association is overseen by the United Front Work Department of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) following the S ...

, She joined the

Chinese Communist Party The Chinese Communist Party (CCP), officially the Communist Party of China (CPC), is the founding and One-party state, sole ruling party of the China, People's Republic of China (PRC). Under the leadership of Mao Zedong, the CCP emerged victoriou ...

in 1985.新疆百科知識辭典, Shaanxi People's Publishing House, November 2008, p525 She died in Beijing in March 1990.''People's Daily'', 30 March 1990

References

{{reflist Members of the 1st Legislative Yuan 20th-century Chinese women politicians Uyghur politicians Chinese schoolteachers Members of the Kuomintang Chinese Communist Party politicians 1912 births 1990 deaths People from Yining County