Xikang

Xikang (formerly romanized as Sikang or Hsikang, lit. 'Kham-in-the-West' or 'Kham to the west [of Sichuan]') was a nominal province formed by the Republic of China in 1939 on the initiative of prominent Sichuan warlord Liu Wenhui and retained by the early People's Republic of China. The former territory of Xikang is now divided between the Tibet Autonomous Region and Sichuan province.

The idea behind Xikang province was to form a single unified province for the entire Kham region under direct Chinese administration, in effect annexing the western Kham region that was then under Tibetan control. Kham was entirely populated by Tibetan people called Khampas. The then-independent Tibet controlled the portion of Kham west of the Upper Yangtze River. The nominal Xikang province also included in the south the Assam Himalayan region (Arunachal Pradesh) that Tibet had recognised as a part of British India by the 1914 McMahon Line agreement. The eastern part of the province was inhabited by a number of different ethnic groups, such as Han Chinese, Yi, Qiang people and Tibetan, then known as Chuanbian (川邊), a special administrative region of the Republic of China. In 1939, it became the new Xikang province with the additional territories belonging to Tibetan and British control added in. After the People's Republic of China invaded and occupied Tibet, the earlier nationalist imagination of Xikang came to fruition.

The provincial capital of Xikang was Kangding from 1939 to 1951 and Ya'an from 1951 to 1955. The province had a population of 3.4 million in 1954.

Overview
The idea of "Xikang" was to construct an independent province of China for the entire Kham region, which would be separate from Tibet as well as Sichuan. Even though it was defined in regulations and sketched out on maps, only the eastern Kham region was ever under the control of the Republic of China.

History


Following the 1905 Batang uprising, Qing China appointed Zhao Erfeng as the Imperial Commissioner for the Sichuan-Yunnan Frontier. Zhao reduced all the autonomous native states in both the western and eastern Kham by 1910 and converted them into Chinese districts governed by magistrates. He signed an agreement with the Tibetan government setting the border between China and Tibet at Gyamda. This paved the way for the formation of a Xikang province, proposed by Zhang's successor Fu Songmu.

Following the Wuchang Uprising in October 1911, which led to the downfall of the Qing dynasty, the region subdued by Frontier Commissioners was established as the Chuanbian Special Administrative District (川邊特別行政區) by the newly founded Republic of China.

In June 1930, eastern Kham (later Xikang) was invaded by the army of Tibet, precipitating the Sino-Tibetan War. With the district locked in internal struggles, no reinforcements were sent to support the Sichuanese troops stationed here. As a result, the Tibetan army captured Garzê and Xinlong Counties without encountering much resistance. When a negotiated ceasefire failed, Tibetan forces expanded the war, attempting to capture parts of southern Qinghai province. In March 1932, their force invaded Qinghai but was defeated by the local Hui warlord Ma Bufang in July, who routed the Tibetan army and drove it back to this district.

The Hui army captured counties that had fallen into the hands of the Tibetan army since 1919. Their victories threatened the supply lines of the Tibetan forces in Garzê and Xinlong. As a result, part of the Tibetan army was forced to withdraw.

In 1932 Liu Wenhui in cooperation with the Qinghai army, sent out a brigade to attack the Tibetan troops in Garzê and Xinlong, eventually occupying them, Dêgê and other counties east of the Jinshajiang River. The 1934 Khamba Rebellion led by the Pandatsang family broke out against the Tibetan government in Lhasa. The Khampa revolutionary leader Pandatsang Rapga was involved.

In January 1939, the Chuanbian Special Administrative District officially became a province of the Republic, the Hsikang Province. Kesang Tsering was sent by the Chinese to Batang to take control of Sikang, where he formed a local government. He was sent there for the purpose of propagating the Three Principles of the People to the Khampa.

In 1950, following the defeat of the Kuomintang by the Chinese Communist Party in the Chinese Civil War, Xikang was split along the Yangtze into Sikang to the east and a separate Chamdo Territory (昌都地区) to the west. Chamdo was merged into Tibet Autonomous Region in 1965. The rest of Hsikang was merged into Sichuan in 1955.