Chinese Migration to North-West China and Inner Mongolia, 1949–59

Abstract

During the first decade of their mainland rule, the Chinese Communists sent considerable numbers of people from the densely populated provinces to develop China's frontier regions and to ensure that the minority peoples there were assimilated into the new Chinese Communist order of things. While some Chinese were sent to the minority areas of the southwest, the overwhelming majority migrated to the North-West and Inner Mongolia. From examining the available evidence, which has not been used comprehensively before, it becomes clear that the pattern of migration is essentially the same for each region in the three phases of migration which took place during the period under consideration—the small scale migration until 1955; the first organised mass migration which coincided with the Leap Forward of 1956 and the subsequent period of consolidation in 1957; and the migration during the Great Leap Forward of 1958.