Suiyuan () is a ''de jure''

province A province is almost always an administrative division within a country or sovereign state, state. The term derives from the ancient Roman ''Roman province, provincia'', which was the major territorial and administrative unit of the Roman Empire ...

of the Republic of China according to the ROC law, as the ROC government formally claims to be the legitimate government of China, with its

capital Capital may refer to: Common uses * Capital city, a municipality of primary status ** List of national capital cities * Capital letter, an upper-case letter Economics and social sciences * Capital (economics), the durable produced goods used f ...

located Guisui (now

Hohhot Hohhot,; abbreviated zh, c=呼市, p=Hūshì, labels=no formerly known as Kweisui, is the capital of Inner Mongolia in the north of the People's Republic of China, serving as the region's administrative, economic and cultural center.''The Ne ...

). The abbreviation was (

pinyin Hanyu Pinyin (), often shortened to just pinyin, is the official romanization system for Standard Mandarin Chinese in China, and to some extent, in Singapore and Malaysia. It is often used to teach Mandarin, normally written in Chinese for ...

: ). The area Suiyuan covered is approximated today by the

prefecture-level cities A prefecture-level city () or prefectural city is an administrative division of the People's Republic of China (PRC), ranking below a province and above a county in China's administrative structure. During the Republican era, many of China' ...

Baotou Baotou (; mn, Buɣutu qota, Бугат хот) 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 h ...

Wuhai Wuhai (; mn, ''Üqai qota'', Mongolian cyrillic.Үхай хот) is a prefecture-level city and regional center in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, China, and is by area the smallest prefecture-level division of the region. It is located ...

Ordos Ordos may refer to: Inner Mongolia *Ordos City, Inner Mongolia, China ** Ordos Ejin Horo Airport * Ordos Loop of the Yellow River, a region of China **Ordos Plateau or "the Ordos", land enclosed by Ordos Loop *Ordos Desert, in Inner Mongolia *Ordos ...

Bayan Nur Bayannur or Bayannao'er (; mn, ''Bayannaɣur qota'', Mongolian Cyrillic Баяннуур хот) is a prefecture-level city in western Inner Mongolia, People's Republic of China. Until 1 December 2003, the area was called Bayannur League. Ba ...

, and parts of

Ulanqab Ulanqab or Ulan Chab (; mn, ''Ulaɣančab qota''; Mongolian cyrillic.Улаанцав хот) is a region administered as a prefecture-level city in south-central Inner Mongolia, China. Its administrative centre is in Jining District, which w ...

, all today part of

Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region Inner Mongolia, officially the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, is an autonomous region of the People's Republic of China. Its border includes most of the length of China's border with the country of Mongolia. Inner Mongolia also accounts for a ...

. 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 imperial dynasty of China and the last orthodox dynasty in Chinese history. It emerged from the Later Jin dynasty founded by the Jianzhou Jurchens, a Tungusic-speak ...

. In the early 1930s Suiyuan was occupied by the

Shanxi Shanxi (; ; formerly romanised as Shansi) is a landlocked province of the People's Republic of China and is part of the North China region. The capital and largest city of the province is Taiyuan, while its next most populated prefecture-lev ...

warlord

Yan Xishan Yan Xishan (; 8 October 1883 – 22 July 1960, ) was a Chinese warlord who served in the government of the Republic of China. He effectively controlled the province of Shanxi from the 1911 Xinhai Revolution to the 1949 Communist victory in ...

, 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 took place in Suiyuan during the

Second Sino-Japanese War The Second Sino-Japanese War (1937–1945) or War of Resistance (Chinese term) was a military conflict that was primarily waged between the Republic of China and the Empire of Japan. The war made up the Chinese theater of the wider Pacific Th ...

. 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 o ...

Mengjiang Mengjiang, also known as Mengkiang or the Mongol Border Land, and governed as the Mengjiang United Autonomous Government, was an autonomous area in Inner Mongolia, formed in 1939 as a puppet state of the Empire of Japan, then from 1940 being ...

from 1937 to 1945 under

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

ese rule. During 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 ...

in 1935, Communist leader

Mao Zedong Mao Zedong pronounced ; also romanised traditionally as Mao Tse-tung. (26 December 1893 – 9 September 1976), also known as Chairman Mao, was a Chinese communist revolutionary who was the founder of the People's Republic of China (PRC) ...

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), 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 ...

. 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 () or Han people (), are an East Asian ethnic group native to China. They constitute the world's largest ethnic group, making up about 18% of the global population and consisting of various subgroups speaking distinctive va ...

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". The ROC does not recognize the changes of administrative divisions made by PRC, official maps of the ROC government shows Suiyuan Province in its pre-1949 borders.

In popular culture

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

References

{{Authority control Provinces of the Republic of China (1912–1949) Former provinces of China Geography of Inner Mongolia History of Inner Mongolia 1954 disestablishments in China Territorial disputes of the Republic of China

In popular culture

See also

References