The Urumqi Military Region: Defense and Security in China's West

Abstract

IN THE WAKE of souring Sino-Soviet relations from the late 1950s and the more recent events in the Persian Gulf, Afghanistan, and the Indian Ocean, China's western frontier regions have steadily increased in importance to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leadership in Beijing. They have, as is well known, been given strategic identity as the Urumqi Military Region (UMR). Constituting about one-fifth of the total area of the People's Republic of China (PRC) but having less than 1.5% of China's total population, the UMR is composed primarily of the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region (XUAR). It also includes the western one-third of the Tibetan Autonomous Region and the Chinese-occupied, but Indian-claimed, Aksai Chin area of Ladakh. This study will assess China's defense and security interests and problems in the UMR.