Ehmetjan Qasim

Qasim was born in Ghulja (Yining in Chinese) in 1914. He studied in the Soviet Union at the Communist University of the Toilers of the East, Moscow in 1936 and was a member of Communist Party of the Soviet Union. Qasim was described as "Stalin's man" and as a "communist-minded progressive". Qasim Russified his surname to "Kasimov" and became a member of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.

File:Ehmetjan Qasimi and delegates of the central government.jpg (front row 5th from right) and Vice Chairman Qasim (front row 4th from right).]]

File:Chiang Kai Shek meet Ehmetjan Qasimi, Abdulkerim Abbas in Nanking.jpg with Chiang Kai-shek in Nanjing on November 22, 1946.]]

File:Ehmetjan Qasimi and Sun Ke in Nanjing.jpg with Sun Fo, the son of Sun Yat-sen in Nanjing on November 24, 1946.]]

He was a member of the governing council of the East Turkestan Republic, a Soviet-backed administration founded in three northwestern districts of Xinjiang during the Ili Rebellion in November 1944.Benson 1990:138 Qasim himself was not involved with the planning of the rebellion.Benson 1990:140 The ETR was initially led by Elihan Tore, who favored forming a conservative Islamic government.[http://www.oxuscom.com/sovinxj.htm Mark Dickens, "The Soviets in Xinjiang 1911-1949"] {{Webarchive|url=https://wayback.archive-it.org/all/20171011101311/http://www.oxuscom.com/sovinxj.htm |date=2017-10-11 }} [https://www.academia.edu/398262/The_Soviets_In_Xinjiang Last Accessed 2010-11-14] Tore was placed under house arrest in the Soviet Union in 1946, under the orders of Stalin. Qasim was a leader of the pro-Soviet East Turkistan Turkic People's National Liberation Committee (ETTPNLC).

In June 1946, Qasim tried to reach a political agreement with the Nationalist government leader Zhang Zhizhong to form a coalition government in Dihua (present day Ürümqi).Benson 1990:63, 70 The ETR was to be disbanded in name but as the Foreign Minister{{cite book |last1=Benson |first1=Linda |title=The Illi Rebellion |date=1990 |publisher=M.E. Sharpe |pages=265}} of the East Turkestan Republic, Qasim called for unity and support for his government and rejected the coalition government.Benson 1990:84, 101 He explained that the people of East Turkestan had risen in rebellion only to secure their rights under the Chinese constitution.Benson 1990:86 He led a delegation to the National Assembly in Nanjing to negotiate bi-lateral relations between ETR and the Republic of China.

In the summer of 1949, as Chinese Nationalists were losing the Chinese Civil War to the Chinese Communists, the Soviet Union planned for ETR leaders to switch sides. On August 22, 1949, Vasiliy Borisov, the Soviet Vice-Consul at Yining, accompanied ETR leadership in auto trip to USSR for urgent talks with Soviet officials about future of ETR, where they were told to cooperate with Chinese Communist Party. They were invited by CCP Chairman Mao Zedong to attend the 1st Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference in Beijing to prepare for the founding of the People's Republic of China. On August 24, 1949, Qasim, Abdulkerim Abbas, Ishaq Beg Munonov, Dalelkhan Sugirbayev, Luo Zhi and other top ETR representatives (11 men in all) boarded a plane in Almaty, the capital of the Kazakh SSR, for Beijing. On September 3, the Soviet Union informed Saifuddin Azizi, another leader of the ETR, who was not on the flight that the plane had crashed near Lake Baikal en route to Beijing, killing all on board.Donald H. McMillen, Chinese Communist Power and Policy in Xinjiang, 1949–1977 (Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press, 1979), p. 30.

File:Ilyushin IL-12 Coach, Aeroflot JP7527078.jpg

Saifuddin later secured the role of regional Chairman of Xinjiang, a job he kept from 1955 to 1978, with a brief respite during the Cultural Revolution.{{Cite book|title=Xinjiang: China's Muslim far northwest|first=Michael|last=Dillon|year=2004|publisher=Routledge|page=79}} News of plane crash and death of Qasim was not publicly announced in Xinjiang until early December, after the People's Liberation Army had secured the region. The ETR was officially dissolved on December 20, 1949.

Ehmetjan Qasim was married in January 1945 to Mahinur Qasim, a native of Korgas County in Ili.(Chinese) [http://book.douban.com/subject/7061101/ 回忆阿合买提江（上下）] The couple had a son and a daughter. In 1952, Mahinur Qasim became the mayor of Yining and joined the Chinese Communist Party. She later served as a member of Standing Committee of the National People's Congress and a vice chair of the All-China Women's Federation.(Chinese) [http://cctv.cntv.cn/special/2013fndh/lingdao/index.shtml 第七届全国妇联领导机构主要成员] She has been a prominent advocate of women and children's rights.(Chinese) [http://www.people.com.cn/GB/shizheng/252/9737/9738/20021218/890697.html 自治区领导会见玛依努尔·哈斯木祝贺她荣获中国内藤国际育儿奖] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160303230626/http://www.people.com.cn/GB/shizheng/252/9737/9738/20021218/890697.html |date=2016-03-03 }} 2002-12-18 Her memoir of her husband, Remembering Ehmetijan, was published in China in 2011.

In the People's Republic of China, Ehmetjan Qasim is remembered as a fighter in the struggle against the Nationalist government. Among the Uyghurs and other Turkic inhabitants of East Turkistan he is remembered as a national hero and fighter who died defending the independence of East Turkistan. His remains were returned to China in April 1950 and later reburied in a memorial cemetery in Yining. The cemetery has a stele with calligraphy by Mao Zedong, praising Qasim and the others who died with him for their contributions to the Chinese Civil War and mourning their death en route to the Inaugural Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference in Beijing.(Chinese) [http://www.xibaipo.com/news2007/News/xinjiang/2008/1018/081018152164HCDG8KCD3BB26DDK860.html "三区革命烈士陵园（三区革命历史纪念馆）：伊宁市" 人民网] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150402152115/http://www.xibaipo.com/news2007/News/xinjiang/2008/1018/081018152164HCDG8KCD3BB26DDK860.html |date=April 2, 2015 }} 2008-10-18

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{{Reflist}}

• Abdurakhman Abay, Ahmetjan Qasimi Haqqida Hikayilar, Urumqi: Xinjiang Peoples Publishing (1984)
• {{cite book | last= Benson | first= Linda | year= 1990 | title= The Ili Rebellion: the Moslem challenge to Chinese authority in Xinjiang, 1944-1949 | url= https://books.google.com/books?id=suuXIhetjZcC&q=burhan | publisher= M.E. Sharpe | isbn= 0-87332-509-5 | ref=Benson}}
• {{cite book|title=Warlords and Muslims in Chinese Central Asia: A Political History of Republican Sinkiang 1911-1949|first=Andrew D. W.|last=Forbes|edition=illustrated|year=1986|publisher=CUP Archive|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=IAs9AAAAIAAJ|isbn=0521255147|access-date=10 March 2014}}
• Zordun Sabir, Anayurt, Almaty: Nash Mir (2006)

• [https://web.archive.org/web/20081023203643/http://www.oxuscom.com/sovinxj.htm The Soviets in Xinjiang (1911–1949)] [https://www.academia.edu/398262/The_Soviets_In_Xinjiang by Mark Dickens]

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Qasimi, Ehmetjan

Category:People from Ili

Category:1949 deaths

Category:1914 births

Category:Chinese expatriates in the Soviet Union

Category:Communist University of the Toilers of the East alumni

Category:Victims of aviation accidents or incidents in the Soviet Union

Category:Victims of aviation accidents or incidents in 1949