Burhan 鮑爾漢 Alt. Burhan Shahidi Burhan (1894-), political leader, gained notice through his activities in Sinkiang politics for more than 30 years. He was governor of the province from 1949 through 1955. After 1955 he was a leading official representative of Communist China's Muslim minority.

There are numerous pockets of obscurity in Burhan's career. His birthplace appears to have been the Aksu district of Sinkiang, although the site has also been given as Chuguchak and Kazan. Apparently, he was taken by his parents at an early age to Kazan in Russian Central Asia, where he received his middle school education. His family were Tatar traders; Burhan claimed to be a Uighur. His parents had sufficient means to send Burhan to Germany for his advanced education. He chose the University of Berlin and studied political economy there from 1912 until 1916. Sometime before 1918 he and his parents went to Sinkiang. That move may have taken place in 1916 at the time of the Tsar's attempted conscription of Turki manpower into the armies or during the upheaval that took place in Russian Turkestan in 1917 at the time of the Bolshevik revolution. In Sinkiang, Burhan entered the service of a trading company. His known career as a Sinkiang trader began at Urumchi in 1918, and, apparently, he continued and expanded his commercial interests after his entry into politics. As a man who spoke not only the indigenous Turki languages but also Russian, German, and Chinese, Burhan had obvious value for the provincial government of Yang Tseng-hsin (q.v.), which was then harried by the overflowing of the Russian revolution into Sinkiang. Burhan entered the service of the Sinkiang provincial government as a secretary in commercial or political negotiations. He advanced steadily in the bureaucracy, serving successively in the department of finance, the customs bureau, and the mint. About 1925 he became director of public roads.

The political upheaval that followed the assassination of Yang Tseng-hsin in July 1928 brought Burhan into the position of foreign affairs commissioner under Chin Shu-jen (q.v.). Shortly afterwards, Burhan went to Germany with the reputed mission of "studying political and economic conditions," a common euphemism for other activities. He may have gone as a purchasing agent for Chin Shu-jen's government or he may have been on a personal mission for China. In any event, Burhan is reported to have continued his studies at the University of Berlin during that second visit to Western Europe.

Burhan's absence from Sinkiang coincided with the Chin Shu-jen interregnum from 1928 to 1933. Burhan is not mentioned as actively having supported Sheng Shih-ts'ai (q.v.) against Chin Shu-jen in April 1933, and he probably returned to Sinkiang after Sheng's coup. His return almost coincided with the arrival of Garegin A. Apresoff as Soviet consul general. In January 1934, in accordance with a local agreement concluded between Apresoff and Sheng Shih-ts'ai, Soviet troops, identified simply as men from the Altai, came to the rescue of Sheng and turned back the Chinese Muslim forces led by Ma Chung-ying (q.v.). Burhan evidently remained at Urumchi for a time, since the Swedish explorer, Sven Hedin, in his book, The Silk Road, records that "Burkhan" attended a dinner party given there by Sheng in June 1934. Soon afterwards, however, Burhan was sent to the Altai region as pacification commissioner. He then was designated by the Sinkiang provincial government as Chinese consul at Andizhan in the Uzbek S.S.R., and later at Zaisan in Kazakhstan.

In 1937, at a time when Sheng Shih-ts'ai was denouncing alleged international plots in all quarters, Burhan returned from Zaisan and became general manager of the official trade monopoly. He was responsible for the collection of Sinkiang products and their delivery to the Soviet purchasing agency, Sovintorg. But Sheng imprisoned Burhan as a "Trotskyist" since Sheng then professed himself to be an orthodox Stalinist, this was a serious charge. Burhan was imprisoned until Sheng Shih-ts'ai's fall from power and departure from Sinkiang in 1944.

Wu Chung-hsin (q.v.), Sheng's successor in October 1944, released Burhan. While imprisoned, Burhan had translated the San-min chu-i [Three People's Principles] of Sun Yat-sen into Uighur. Wu Chung-hsin was favorably impressed by Burhan; Wu soon appointed him deputy commissioner for civil affairs in the provincial government and, later, political commissioner for the Urumchi district. The governor had need of talent, for an anti- Chinese revolt of the Kazakh and Turki peoples broke out in November 1944. There was evidence of Soviet involvement, and a so-called East Turkestan Republic came into being. When Chang Chih-chung (q.v.), head of the Generalissimo's headquarters for the Northwest, replaced Wu Chung-hsin as provincial governor in July 1946, Burhan became one of his two deputies; the Uighur Akhmedjan Kasimov was the other. Chang Chih-chung's regime had the defect, in the eyes of the local population of Sinkiang, of being Chinese. And the civil war in China resumed the same month. There was a new upsurge of Turki nationalism, and the political issue was again raised when Akhmedjan in February 1947 demanded full autonomy, except in regard to national defense, for the so-called East Turkestan Republic. Masud Sabri (q.v.), a Uighur with longstanding Kuomintang connections in China, was named to head the Sinkiang provincial "government in May 1947, in a move outwardly designed to conciliate the rebels. Chang Chihchung remained in Sinkiang for a time to aid his Uighur successor. Burhan remained vice chairman of the provincial government; he did not agree with Akhmedjan. In fact, Burhan accepted new positions which indicated a pro-Kuomintang stand. He had been made a state councillor of the National Government in April, when he had accompanied Chang Chih-chung on his critical tour of southern Sinkiang. Burhan also became director of the Sino-Soviet cultural association at Urumchi, chancellor of the Sinkiang Academy, and a member of the Sinkiang headquarters of the Kuomintang.

Since the appointment of Masud Sabri offered little of substance to the non-Chinese majority of Sinkiang, some Turki elements in the population soon pressed for his removal. In October 1947 Chang Chih-chung went to Nanking for negotiations involving the Soviet embassy. Burhan either accompanied Chang or proceeded shortly after him to Nanking, where he was made an adviser to the National Government. The deadlock in Sinkiang continued. During 1948 Burhan reportedly acted as liaison between the Soviet embassy at Nanking and Chang Chih-chung, who had returned to his post at Lanchow. Burhan suggested to Chang that the removal of Sung Hsi-lien (q.v.), commander of the Nationalist military forces in Sinkiang, would assist in restoring political order in the province. In the summer of 1948 Sung was replaced by T'ao Chih-yueh. However, Nationalist power was deteriorating rapidly throughout China by that time. In December, Masud Sabri was recalled, and on 31 December 1948 Burhan was appointed to head the Sinkiang provincial government. He formally assumed his post on 10 January 1949, only a few days before the retirement of Chiang Kai-shek as President of China.

Burhan was said to have reached an initial understanding with the Soviet embassy respecting Sinkiang in December 1948, before he left Nanking. In January 1949, Chang Chihchung returned to Urumchi with the stated purpose of negotiating a new treaty with the Soviet Union to replace the ten-year agreement which Sheng Shih-ts'ai had signed in 1939 to govern Sino-Soviet economic relations in Sinkiang. Chang, after inconclusive discussions with the Soviet negotiators, went to Lanchow. Burhan and T'ao Chih-yueh conferred with him there in early February 1949, and then they returned to Urumchi.

From the time of the execution in 1943 of Ch'en T'an-ch'iu, Mao Tse-min (qq.v.), and others until the autumn of 1949, the Chinese Communists had had virtually no access to Sinkiang. When they moved into that area, they had no reliable personnel who were acquainted with the problems of the area. Therefore, Burhan, who held the post of provincial governor at Urumchi through the critical year of 1949, played an important role. In the early autumn, as the Chinese Communist armies under P'eng Te-huai (q.v.) were approaching Sinkiang with overwhelming force, the provincial regime at Urumchi bowed to the inevitable with an action which the Communists labeled "peaceful surrender." Late in September, Burhan, as chairman of the provincial government, severed relations with the National Government, then at Canton, pledged allegiance to the new regime then being established at Peking, and stated that his government would accept the Communist peace terms and "await reorganization." The Chinese Communist leaders replied at once, acclaiming the stand taken by the Sinkiang authorities. The Communist armies entered Sinkiang, and a new provincial government was established at the end of 1949 with Burhan, durable and amenable, as its chairman. He was also named to membership on the Northwest Military and Administrative Committee, the principal regional government organization established by the Communists. During the early 1950's Burhan continued to play a key role in carrying out Chinese Communist policies in Sinkiang. His chief task during that period was to curb and eradicate Turki nationalist sentiments and to prepare the peoples of Sinkiang for autonomy on the design adopted by Peking: participation in the local government by the inhabitants with control radiating from Peking. In his major policy speeches of those years, Burhan stressed that the political, economic, and cultural development of Sinkiang was possible "only in the great family of the People's Republic of China" and argued that it was the policy of the new government to safeguard freedom of worship for all peoples if they obeyed the nation's laws and did not succumb to "counterrevolutionary activities carried on under the cloak of religion." The political climax of the Chinese Communist effort to deal with the difficult minorities problems in Sinkiang was reached in the autumn of 1955, after three years of studies and preliminary organizational steps. On 1 October 1955 the Sinkiang-Uighur Autonomous Region was formally established, with the Uighurs, who then made up about three-fourths of the population of Sinkiang, recognized as its principal ethnic group. Saifudin became chairman of the new regime at Urumchi. Burhan's direct role in the affairs of Sinkiang notably diminished after 1955.

Burhan had begun to play a more prominent role in the national and international programs of the Peking government. When the China Islamic Association was launched in May 1953, Burhan became its first president. He was the senior Muslim member of the Chinese delegation which attended the Afro-Asian Conference at Bandung in Indonesia in April 1955 and in subsequent years. He headed a large Chinese cultural delegation to Egypt in February 1956, and in April he signed a Sino-Egyptian agreement for cultural cooperation. In June, as China's chief representative, he signed a similar agreement with Syria. Burhan became one of the more widely traveled men in the Chinese Communist hierarchy, playing a somewhat stereotyped role as a tame Muslim Communist at meetings of the World Peace Council, the Afro-Asian Solidarity conferences, and other approved gatherings. He was a prominent figure in the standing committee of the board of directors of the Chinese People's Association for Cultural Relations with Foreign Countries, and served as president of the China-United Arab Republic Friendship Association and as vice chairman of the China-Africa Friendship Association.

Burhan's rise to prominence as an international conference-goer was enhanced by his linguistic versatility. In 1953 China's first Uighur-Chinese-Russian dictionary, compiled by him, was published by the Nationality Publishing House. That volume reportedly was based on an earlier version which he completed in 1942, but was unable to publish at the time, purportedly "because the culture of the minority nationalities was then suppressed" by the Kuomintang. In 1956 he was named director of the institute of languages of the national minorities of the Academy of Sciences at Peking.

After 1949 Burhan's actions were more sharply defined than his inner motivations. Although he had no known earlier connections with the Communists, he nevertheless was admitted to the Chinese Communist party after the so-called liberation of Sinkiang and was selected to present the official report on minorities work, united-front work, and religion at its Eighth National Congress in September 1956.

With his Caucasian features and fair skin, Burhan has been described as looking like Czechs of the Benes family in marked physical contrast to his colleagues from the People's Republic of China.