Chin Shu-jen (1883?-?), governor of Sinkiang province. His administrative methods resulted in a Muslim insurrection that lasted for more than three years. He was imprisoned in 1935 by the National Government for having negotiated a secret commercial agreement with the Soviet Union.

Little is known about Chin Shu-jen's childhood except that he was born in Taoho hsien, Kansu province. After being graduated from the Kansu provincial academy, he obtained the degree of chü-jen. He served for a time as the principal of a normal school. Then he entered official life in Kansu and gained the favor of Yang Tseng-hsin (q.v.).

Near the end of the Ch'ing period, Chin Shu-jen followed Yang Tseng-hsin to Sinkiang province, where Chin became secretary of the military affairs department and later served as a hsien magistrate. During the long tenure of Yang Tseng-hsin as provincial governor of Sinkiang after the revolution of 191 1 , Chin Shujen gradually rose in rank and eventually became secretary general of the provincial government at Urumchi. In 1927 Chin became commissioner for civil affairs in Sinkiang. He was serving in that post at the time of the assassination of Yang Tseng-hsin on 7 July 1928. It was suspected that Chin had known of the plot to kill Yang. In any event, Chin took advantage of Yang's death to seize power. He promptly executed the assassins and took steps to prevent civil disorder. A telegram was sent to the National Government recommending that Chin be named provincial governor. After some hesitation, Nanking made the appointment. During this period the Soviet Union was steadily increasing its influence over the economic life of Sinkiang, and the comple ion in 1930 of the Turkestan-Siberian railroad near the Sinkiang border forwarded its strategic domination of the province. On 1 October 1931 Chin Shu-jen signed a secret commercial agreement with the Soviet Union which increased and gave legal sanction to the growing economic control of Sinkiang province by the Soviet government. The pact was not announced, and the National Government of China did not know of its existence for many months.

Chin Shu-jen's internal policies had served to alienate the overwhelming majority of the non- Chinese population of Sinkiang. He had appointed his younger brother, Chin Shu-hsin, commissioner of military affairs, and his orderly, Ts'ui Chao-chi, commander of a brigade at Urumchi. Because of the actions of these and other officials, the provincial administration was marked by injustice, inefficiency, and corruption. Chin's economic policies, including heavy direct taxation and the establishment of government companies which controlled the principal export products of Sinkiang, also led to increased popular discontent.

Chin Shu-jen's administration was challenged in 1931, when an outbreak occurred at Hami, the most important garrison center in eastern Sinkiang and the only surviving native state within the province. The khanate of Hami had traditionally been a semi-independent Turki (Uighur) principality, with local affairs handled by its own ruling house. When the reigning prince had died in November 1930, Chin Shujen had attempted to impose his direct rule, on the pretext that hereditary principalities should not exist within the territory of the Chinese republic, and had encouraged the movement of Chinese famine refugees from his native Kansu province into Turki farmlands. Rebellion broke out in March 1931 ; the Turki natives at Hami rose and killed all Chinese tax collectors in the area. The outbreak soon assumed major proportions when the Turki leaders sought and obtained the aid of the T'ung-kans [Chinese Muslims] of Kansu, their coreligionists. That move introduced the forces of Ma Chung-ying (q.v.) into the matter and led to bloody fighting at Hami. The revolt there was quelled temporarily in the autumn of 1931 by Chin Shu-jen, who relied principally on the conscription of White Russians who had taken up residence in Sinkiang after the revolution in Russia. Ma Chung-ying was by no means defeated, however; he spent most of 1932 in consolidating, equipping, and training his forces in Kansu. Chin Shu-jen's ineptness in dealing with the native peoples of Sinkiang was demonstrated again in 1932, when he caused Seng Chen Rinpoche, the able regent of the Torgut Mongols from Karashar, to be assassinated. The Mongols, already antagonized by Chinese migration into their grazing lands, had refused to come to the aid of the Chinese when the Hami revolt broke out. Because Seng Chen Rinpoche was the spiritual head of all the Mongols of Sinkiang and one of the most important non-Chinese in the province, Chin's action, intended to intimidate the Mongols, made them more insubordinate than ever. At the beginning of 1933, the T'ung-kan forces led by Ma Chung-ying, which again had moved northwest, reached the city walls of Urumchi itself. After bitter fighting, Ma and his rebels were repulsed again. The position of Chin Shu-jen was temporarily strengthened in March 1933 by the timely arrival at Urumchi ofseveral thousand Chinese troops who had been driven from Manchuria into Siberia by the Japanese attack of 1931-32. That event coincided with a new political crisis at Urumchi. Despite the fact that the White Russian mercenaries had been the mainstay of the provincial government forces in the fighting since 1931, Chin Shu-jen begrudged them this success and gave them little or no recognition. The consequent dissatisfaction of the White Russians coincided with steadily growing opposition to Chin on the part of many Chinese. The situation was not improved by the actions of Chin Shuhsin and Ts'ui Chao-chi, who had cornered the grain supplies when the city was under siege and who were manipulating the market for private gain. Both political and popular unrest increased, and Chin Shu-jen notified the National Government at Nanking that the province was in revolt. He fled from Urumchi on 12 April 1933.

In a brief battle on the outskirts of the city, Chin's troops were defeated by a force composed largely of Chinese troops from Manchuria under the command of Sheng Shih-ts'ai (q.v.). Sheng proceeded to consolidate both military and civil authority as head of the Sinkiang provincial government. Chin Shu-jen attempted to salvage the situation, but at the beginning of May he telegraphed Nanking that he had been driven out of Sinkiang by the Russians and that the province was lost to China forever. After a long trek through Siberia, he reached Nanking in October 1933. There he was arrested and imprisoned by the National Government authorities, who charged him with secretly negotiating with a foreign power in October 1931. He was brought to trial in March 1935 and sentenced in April to three-and-one-halfyears' imprisonment. He began to serve his sentence in August. However, a government order for his pardon was issued on 10 October 1935, and Chin was released from prison the following day. Nothing is known of his life after that time.