Demchukdonggrub (1902-), MongoUan prince of the West Sunid Banner, was known in China as Te Wang. He led the movement to secure autonomy for Inner MongoHa.

The son of a jassak [prince] of the West Sunid Banner of Mongoha, Te Wang was born in the territory of the Sihngol League in Inner MongoUa. He was educated at a Chinese middle school in Suiyuan province and at the Mongolian-Tibetan Academy in Peking. In 1919 he succeeded his father as West Sunid jassak, and in 1921 he became a deputy chieftain of the Silingol League. He also was a leading figure in a nationalist group known as the Young Mongols. Most of the members of this group had been educated in China, and they hoped to establish a self-determined Inner Mongolian government within the framework of the Chinese Nationalist system. After the establishment of the Mongolian People's Republic in Outer Mongolia, another Inner Mongolian nationalist group, the Inner Mongolian People's Revolutionary party, was formed in 1925. Its aim was self-determination through revolution.

When the National Government was established at Nanking in 1928, Te Wang and his reformist group hoped that the right of selfdetermination promised the minority peoples of China in Sun Yat-sen's Principles for Xational Construction would be granted. The National Government, however, developed a Mongol policy that did little to provide increased political rights for the Mongols of Inner Mongolia. Rather, it transformed the so-called special districts which made up Inner Mongolia into three new provinces—Chahar, Suiyuan, and Ninghsia. At the same time, it encouraged Chinese colonization of Mongol grazing lands. In reaction to Chinese political encroachment and economic exploitation. Inner Mongolian nationalism developed rapidly.

Of the Mongol groups concerned, the Silingol League of northern Chahar was least affected by the Chinese policy; very few Chinese colonists entered its territory. Te Wang became the most influential young leader in Inner Mongolia. By about 1930 he had stirred and intensified anti-Chinese sentiment among the Mongols in the entire area from the grazing lands of western Manchuria to the Ordos desert in Suiyuan.

The Japanese invasion of Manchuria in the autumn of 1931 was a new external military challenge to the Mongols. .After the Japanese forces consolidated control in Manchuria, they sponsored the creation there of Manchoukuo, which included three of the six Mongol leagues of Inner Mongolia. Because the National Government made no attempt to counter Japanese aggression, Te Wang and his Young Mongols prepared to defend their territory. As ruling prince of the West Sunid Banner, Te Wang was a commissioner of the Chahar provincial government, headed by Sung Cheyuan (q.v.). The Mongols had learned that they could expect scant consideration of their views from the Chinese proincial governors. In the winter of 1932, therefore, Te Wang led a small delegation of Mongol dignitaries to Nanking to offer proposals for reforming the National Government's administration of Inner Mongolia. The Mongols were virtually ignored at Nanking, however; and they left the capital in anger, issuing a public protest as they departed and another from Peiping on their way back to Inner Mongolia. The manner of their leaving evidently caused second thoughts at Nanking, for the National Government in December 1932 appointed the Panchen Lama (q.v.) to the Mongolian and Tibetan Affairs Commission and sent him to Pailingmiao in Inner Mongolia as pacification commissioner for the so-called Western Regions. His mission was to mollify the Mongols so that they would remain loyal to Nanking. The Panchen Lama, however, appeared to give qualified support to Te Wang's proposals for self-government in Inner Mongolia. Te was appointed defense conimissioner at P'angchiang and was given some responsibility for training Mongolian military forces.

In March 1933 units of the Japanese Kwantung Army occupied Jehol, and at the end of April the Japanese occupied Dolonor in eastern Chahar, on the border of Silingol League territory. The Japanese authorities had organized the Mongols of western Manchuria, or Eastern Inner Mongolia, into a new political division, Hsingan, nominally designed to form ture of Manchoukuo. That action brought newpressure to bear on the Chinese and on the Sihngol League. Nanking, for its part, did not respond to the challenge, and, after the Japanese move into Dolonor, the National Government abandoned a plan, previously approved in response to Te Wang's repeated pleas, to expand the Mongol military training program at P'angchiang.

In the spring of 1933 Te Wang and his associates took steps to achieve autonomy. In addition to being prince of the West Sunid Banner, Te was the most influential figure of the Silingol League, whose titular ruler, Prince So, was over 60 and in poor health. One of Te's close associates was Yun Wang (Prince Yun), chief of the Ulanchap League, whose nephewwas a friend of Te Wang and a strong supporter of his demands for self-government in Inner Mongolia. In May 1933 a meeting of Mongol leaders from Western Inner Mongolia was convened at Pailingmiao under the leadership of Prince Yun and Te Wang to discuss the position of Inner Mongolia. Japanese pressure continued. The Tangku Truce of 31 May 1933 left southern Chahar within the Japanese sphere of influence, and the Japanese authorities soon established an autonomous Mongolian district at Dolonor. The Silingol Mongols of northern Chahar were isolated, caught in a pocket between Manchoukuo and the Mongolian People's Republic. A meeting was convened on 26 July 1933 at Pailingmiao to discuss the matter of independence for Western Inner Mongolia. The majority of the Mongol princes were unwilling to declare independence, and the Panchen Lama reportedly exercised a restraining influence. On 14 August, however, the ruling princes of Western Inner Mongolia sent a telegram to Nanking announcing their intention of establishing an autonomous Mongolian government. Prince So's name headed the list of signatories, followed immediately by that of Te Wang.

Huang Shao-hung (q.v.) and Shih Ch'ingyang, chairman of the Mongolian and Tibetan Affairs Commission, were sent to Inner Mongolia to stop the autonomy movement. Shih Ch'ing-yang failed to calm the Mongol leaders, and Huang Shao-hung was unable even to induce the Mongol leaders to meet with him at Kalgan. [ 7 ] Demchukdonggrub The Mongol leaders haci already called a new conference, which met at Pailingmiao in September 1933. From 9 to 24 October, the leaders met to organize an autonomous Mongolian regime in Inner Mongolia. The new government was to remain under the guidance of the National Government at Nanking, but without the interposition of Chinese provincial governors. On 22 October 1933, Prince Yun was elected to head the new regime, and Te Wang was chosen to direct its political affairs bureau.

The Pailingmiao group had sent one of Te Wang's close associates, Pao Yueh-ch'ing, to Kalgan to prepare for a conference with Huang Shao-hung. Nanking then designated Huang to head a special commission to Inner Mongolia; he was assisted by Chao P'i-lien, vice director of the Mongolian and Tibetan Affairs Commission, and by various technical experts. Huang's party left Nanking on 21 October 1933 and, after spending several days at Peiping, arrived at Kweisui in Suiyuan province on 29 October. By that time, the Pailingmiao conference had adjourned.

Huang sent a delegation of ten men to Pailingmiao to talk with Te Wang and his colleagues. Te ^Vang, in turn, sent an emissary to Kweisui to set forth the Mongol position and to argue that the action regarding autonomy was motivated by a desire to unite the Mongols against the Japanese. The two men then exchanged telegrams, without making any progress toward a mutual understanding. Te Wang suggested that the matter was of sufficient weight and complexity to warrant a meeting between them.

On 10 November Huang Shao-hung went to Pailingmiao, and met with Prince Yun, Te Wang, and the other Mongol leaders. Although Prince Yun nominally headed the Mongol group, Te Wang was the chief Mongol spokesman. Te Wang reported that the Japanese had approached the Mongols and had proposed the creation of a "Mongolia" which w-ould control all territory of Inner Mongolia. He noted reports charging that he was negotiating with Japan, observing that, if he had done so, he would not feel it necessary to petition Nanking regarding the matter. Since three quarters of what had once been Mongolia had been lost to Russia and Japan, he said, it was essential to consider immediate steps for the defense of the remaining quarter. Although Huang Shaohung made several concessions, he stated categorically that the National Government could not permit the establishment of political autonomy in Inner Mongolia. Finally, after the Panchen Lama had mediated between the two sides, the Mongols dropped their insistence that they have an autonomous government and presented two sets of proposals to Nanking's emissary. Huang accepted one of these. After Huang Shao-hung and the Panchen Lama had returned to Nanking, the National Government in December 1933 modified the agreement. On 17 January 1934 the Central Political Council of the Kuomintang passed an act that granted the formal framework of what had been agreed upon at Pailingmiao, but omitted the substance. The dispute began again. But this time the Mongols had a stronger bargaining position. P'u-yi was scheduled to be enthroned as emperor of Manchoukuo on 1 March 1934, and there had been new exchanges between the Inner Mongolians and the Japanese. The Mongols then threatened that if Nanking would not accede to their demands, they would be forced to give serious consideration to aligning Inner Mongolia with Manchoukuo.

Nanking repealed the January 1934 act, and on 28 February the Central Political Council of the Kuomintang passed an act establishing the Mongolian Local Autonomous Political Council. On 7 March, Prince Yun was designated to head the Political Council, and Te Wang was made director of its political affairs bureau. The council was inaugurated on 23 April 1934, and on 1 May its officers assumed their duties. The arrangement soon proved to be unworkable. The Japanese pressure on Inner Mongolia increased. On its eastern border, Li Shou-hsin, a Manchoukuo official with the title of garrison commander of eastern Chahar, moved his headquarters from Dolonor to Kuyuan. At the end of June, Colonel Doihara of the Kwantung Army made a trip to Inner Mongolia to encourage the Mongol leaders to recognize the inevitability and magnanimity of Japanese authority.

Colonel Doihara was not immediately successful. The Mongols still hoped that the agreement with Nanking would give them the autonomy they desired. But the National Government failed to remit the promised funds for the Political Council and refused to provide arms for the Mongol troops. Then, on 3 September 1934, Nanking agents kidnapped Te Wang's chief of staff in Peiping and shot him, saying that he was a Japanese spy.

By that time, Pailingmiao had begun to interfere with National Government salt traffic and with Chinese trade passing through Mongol territory. The Panchen I^ama continued his efforts at mediation, but, as early as August 1934, Te Wang had begun to negotiate openly with the Japanese. He now told an emissary from the Chahar administrative council that Mongol loyalty was dependent upon Nanking's developing a "definite policy" and taking "appropriate measures to help Inner Mongolia." The National Government, preoccupied with its military campaigns against the Chinese Communists and already moving, under Japanese pressure, toward accepting the establishment of a "friendly" regime in north China, did not aid Inner Mongolia. In November 1934 Prince Yun and Te Wang met with Chiang Kai-shek at Kweisui. However, Chiang at that time was intent on the New Life Movement and other domestic programs, and he gave the Mongol leaders scant encouragement.

In 1935 the Japanese extended their political control of the Tientsin-Peiping-Kalgan sector; in December, the National Government at Nanking in effect legitimized the shift in the power balance in north China by establishing the Hopei-Chahar Political Affairs Council. Te Wang then shifted his allegiance to the Japanese, who had promised the Mongols political autonomy and increased practical support without violent social revolution. Te Wang was not so naive as to ignore the fact that the Japanese had military and strategic interests of their own, but by the winter of 1935 he no longer had any promising alternatives. In mid-January 1936 Nanking charged that Te Wang had sided with "seditious elements" and had proclaimed the independence of Inner Mongolia. On 21 January, Te Wang sent a formal denial of the report to Nanking. However, the Japanese authorities had given Te Wang the mission of calling a conference of Mongol leaders to proclaim the independence of Inner Mongolia. When that meeting was held at Pailingmiao in February 1936, the participants learned that independence from China would make them entirely dependent upon Japan.

Prince So, leader of the Silingol League, whose banner was immediately adjacent to Jehol province, had previously supported Te Wang at the October 1933 meeting, but had warned Te that if his policies gave rise to an "affair," he would leave the coalition in the name of the Silingol Mongols. Prince So now departed, taking eight of the ten Silingol banners with him. He was accompanied by the leaders and all banners of the Ikechao League (located entirely in that part of Suiyuan province under the jurisdiction of Fu Tso-yi, the governor of Suiyuan), and by two banners of the Ulanchap League. At Kweisui, under the aegis of Fu Tso-yi, they established an opposition political council. Te Wang's supporters now consisted of two Silingol banners (one of them his own), Prince Yun and four Ulanchap banners, and the Chahar aimak.

Te withdrew to Tehua (Coptchil). In April 1936 he and his supporters held a congress at which they decided to establish a military government at Tehua and to cooperate with the Japanese. On 28 June they inaugurated the socalled Inner Mongolian Government at Tehua. The Japanese assigned a military adviser to Te Wang and supplied officers to train his troops. Te and Prince Yun then embarked on a program to expand the Mongolian military forces. In mid-August 1936 Te Wang returned to Pailingmiao to wind up the affairs of the Political Council. On 13 August an attempt to assassinate him was made. The next day, he returned to his former garrison headquarters at P'angchiang. His antagonism toward the Chinese National Government had increased, and in September he met with his staff and with Japanese officers to plan an invasion of Suiyuan province.

The Suiyuan campaign of November and December 1936 was undertaken by Manchoukuo-Mongol forces with Japanese assistance in the form of military advisers and equipment. Te Wang served as commander of the Mongolian forces, with Li Shou-hsin as his deputy. The combined Manchoukuo-Mongolian forces numbered aboüt 10,000. The Chinese defense of Suiyuan proved to be unexpectedly strong. The Chinese captured Pailingmiao on 19 November. They seized military stores and documents allegedly confirming that the Japanese planned to extend control throughout Inner Mongolia and even to the predominantly Muslim areas of China's northwest and Sinkiang. On 21 December 1936 Te Wang announced the termination of hostilities. The National Government, in the light of the Chinese successes, instructed Fu Tso-yi, Yen Hsi-shan (q.v.), and Prince Sha of the Ikechao League to establish a new political headquarters at Pailingmiao. Te Wang was designated a national traitor by the National Government. On 18 January 1937 he proclaimed himself chairman of the Inner Mongolian regime that had been established at Tehua in June 1936. With the outbreak of the Sino-Japanese war in July 1937, Te Wang's Mongol cavalry forces went into action with Japanese units. The Japanese rapidly extended their military control over Suiyuan province and sponsored a meeting at Kweisui in late October 1937 which proclaimed Suiyuan's independence from China. The Japanese then established a nominally autonomous Mongol government for Suiyuan to parallel similar Mongol regimes which they had already formed in southern Chahar and northern Shansi. In November 1937 they created a Meng-chiang [Mongolian borderlands] joint committee, with headquarters at Kalgan, to act as an administrative and coordinating body for the three Japanese-sponsored Mongolian governments. In December 1937 the Meng-chiang joint committee became the Mongolian Federated Autonomous Government, with headquarters at Kweisui. Prince Yun was made chairman of that body, with Te Wang as vice chairman and chief of the political affairs bureau. Li Shouhsin became minister of war. The Kweisui regime adopted a new flag and introduced a new calendar, with chronology reckoned from the reign of Chingis Khan. When Prince Yun died in 1938, Te became chairman of the government. In September 1939 the government headquarters was moved to Kalgan. Te Wang then turned over command of the Mongol cavalry units to Li Shou-hsin and devoted himself to the task of sustaining Mongolian interests as best he could.

The Inner Mongolian regime was nominally on the same administrative level as the so-called provisional Chinese government at Peiping. After the establishment of a new Japanesesponsored national government at Nanking in March 1940 [see Wang Ching-wei), Te Wang's regime was brought under the authority of that Nanking government. In practice, however, both before and after 1940, the Mongolian Federated Autonomous Government received its main directives from the Japanese. It was noteworthy, however, that the Japanese continued to keep the Mongols of Western Inner Mongolia administratively separated from those of Eastern Inner ^longolia, who continued to be grouped in the Hsingan province of western Manchuria. Te Wang and his adherents were denied the independence they desired. In 1945 the Kuomintang, the Chinese Communists, the Mongols of Inner Mongolia, and the Mongols of Outer Mongolia all began to jockey for position within the new framework of power created by the demise of Japanese military power and by the entry of Soviet and Outer Mongolian forces into Manchuria and sections of Inner Mongolia. Te Wang escaped to Chungking, but his wife and children were captured and carried away by the invading Soviet-Mongol forces. Te conferred with Chiang Kai-shek about the Kuomintang's postwar plans for Inner Mongolia, but apparently found Chiang no more pliable than he had been earlier with respect to Mongol aspirations. Te was permitted to return to north China, where he lived in retirement in Peiping under the surveillance of Fu Tso-yi (q.v.).

Te Wang remained at Peiping until the end of 1948. Shortly before the Communist occupation of the city, he flew to Tingyuanying in Ninghsia province. There he worked with Ta Wang (Darijaya) in an attempt to mobilize Mongol forces of the Alashan and Etsin Gol Banners to resist the Chinese Communist forces, which were rapidly extending their control of northwest China. Te W'ang then flew to Canton, the temporary seat of the National Government, where he proposed that, in order to strengthen the position of Ta Wang and himself, Inner Mongolia be granted autonomy under Chinese Nationalist sovereignty. He conferred with acting President Li Tsung-jen. They reached no agreement, and Te Wang was merely informed that his petition would be made a matter of official record.

Te Wang was forced to return to Inner Mongolia without the political concessions with which he had hoped to rally general Mongol support for resistance to the Communists. He assembled a force of several thousand men and advanced to a point near Paotow in western Suiyuan. There, however, he was confronted by Chinese Nationalist forces under the command of Fu Tso-yi's lieutenant Tung Ch'i-wu (q.v.). The Mongols were forced back to the mountains near Te Wang's former capital of Pailingmiao, where they scattered.

For several years after ^949 there were no reliable reports of Te Wang's whereabouts. It then was learned that he had crossed the border into the Mongolian People's Republic, where his family was living in exile. Te Wang apparently enjoyed a measure of personal freedom during his residence at Ulan Bator (Urga). HoWever, perhaps after the agreement on economic and cultural cooperation concluded in October 1952 between the Mongolian People's Republic and the People's Republic of China, Te Wang was handed over to the Chinese Communist authorities at Peking and was imprisoned for several years as a war criminal. He was pardoned by the Central People's Government at Peking on the occasion of the Chinese New Year celebrations in 1963, and he was released from confinement on 9 April 1963. In 1964 Te Wang was reported to be teaching at the Inner Mongolian University at Huhehot i^Kweisui), the capital of the Inner Mongolian Autonomous Region in the People's Republic of China. Fan Ch'ang-chiang ^ ^ il