View source for Suiyuan

{{Short description|Historical province of China}}
{{for|the historical town|Hohhot#Ming and Qing era}}
{{Infobox former subdivision
| native_name            = {{nobold|{{lang|zh-hant|綏遠省}}}}
| conventional_long_name = Suiyuan Province
| common_name            = Suiyuan
| subdivision            = 
| nation                 = 
| status_text            = [[Province of China]]
<!-- General information -->| capital                = [[Hohhot|Kweisui (Hohhot)]]
| today                  = <!-- Rise and fall, events, years and dates -->
<!-- Only fill in the start/end event entry if a specific article exists. Don't just say "abolition" or "declaration". -->| year_start             = 1928
| year_end               = 
| event_start            = Established as a province of the ROC
| date_start             = 
| event2                 = Reorganised as a province of the PRC
| date_event2            = 1949
| event3                 = Incorporated into the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region
| date_event3            = 1954
| era                    = 
| event_pre              = <!-- Optional: A crucial event that took place before before "event_start" -->
| date_pre               = 
| event_end              = 
| date_end               = <!-- Images -->
| image_map              = Republic of China edcp location map (disputed territories) Suiyüan.svg
| image_map_caption      = Suiyuan as claimed by the Republic of China
<!-- Flag navigation: Preceding and succeeding entities "p1" to "p5" and "s1" to "s8" -->| p1                     = Suiyuan Special Administrative Region
| flag_p1                = Flag of the Republic of China.svg
| s1                     = Inner Mongolia
| flag_s1                = Flag of China.svg
| stat_year1             = 1949
| stat_area1             = 
| stat_pop1              = 2,000,000+
}}

'''Suiyuan''' ({{zh|t=綏遠|s=绥远|p=Suíyuǎn|l=Pacify the Distant Region}}) was a historical [[province of China]].<ref>''Untaming the Frontier in Anthropology, Archaeology, and History''. (2023:46). United States: University of Arizona Press.</ref> Suiyuan's [[Capital (political)|capital]] was Guisui (now [[Hohhot]]). The abbreviation was {{lang|zh-hant|綏}} ([[pinyin]]: {{lang|zh-latn|suí}}). The area Suiyuan covered is approximated today by the [[prefecture-level cities]] of [[Hohhot]], [[Baotou]], [[Wuhai]], [[Ordos City|Ordos]], [[Bayan Nur]], and parts of [[Ulanqab]], all today part of [[Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region]]. Suiyuan was named after a district in the capital established in the [[Qing Dynasty]].

In the early 1930s Suiyuan was occupied by the [[Shanxi]] warlord [[Yan Xishan]], who mined Suiyuan's iron, reorganized the province's finances, and brought over {{convert|4,000|acre|km2}} 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.<ref>Gillin, Donald G. ''Warlord: Yen Hsi-shan in Shansi Province 1911–1949''. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press. 1967. Page 128.</ref>

The [[Suiyuan campaign]] took place in Suiyuan during the [[Second Sino-Japanese War]]. It became a part of the [[puppet state]] of [[Mengjiang]] from 1937 to 1945 under [[Japan]]ese rule.

During the [[Chinese Civil War]] in 1935, Communist leader [[Mao Zedong]] promised Mongol leaders a "unified autonomous" administration which would include all "historic" Mongol lands within China, in exchange for Mongol support against the [[Kuomintang]]. This promise included the declaration that, "Under no circumstances should other [non-Mongol ethnic groups] be allowed to occupy the land of the Inner Mongolian nation". However, following the [[Chinese Revolution (1949)|communist victory in 1949]], the administrators of the soon-to-be "Mongolian" territories with [[Han Chinese]] 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 [enlarged] autonomous region".<ref>{{Cite book|title=Chinese Society: Change, Conflict, and Resistance|editor1-first=Elizabeth|editor1-last=Perry|editor2-first=Mark|editor2-last=Selden|publisher=Taylor & Francis|year=2010|chapter=Alter/native Mongolian identity|first=Uradyn|last=Bulag|pages=266–268}}</ref>

== In popular culture ==
* [[W. Douglas Burden]] references Suiyuan in his book ''Look to the Wilderness'', in the chapter "On the Sino-Mongolian Frontier".<ref>{{cite book |last1=Burden |first1=W. Douglas |title=Look to the Wilderness |date=1956 |publisher=Little, Brown and Company |location=Boston |pages=87–109}}</ref>

== See also == 
* {{section link|Inner Mongolia#Republic of China and the Second World War periods}}

== References ==
{{Reflist}}

{{Defunct Chinese provinces}}
{{Suspended ROC provinces}}
{{Defunct PRC provinces}}
{{World War II}}
{{Authority control}}
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[[Category:Provinces of the Republic of China (1912–1949)]]
[[Category:Former provinces of China]]
[[Category:Geography of Inner Mongolia]]
[[Category:History of Inner Mongolia]]
[[Category:1954 disestablishments in China]]