The Northwest Falls

From Manchuria eastward through Sinkiang, along some 3,500 miles of Inner Asian border between Russia and China, a great shift in power neared completion last week. The vast, potentially rich (oil, coal, gold, wolfram, uranium) territory known as China's Northwest was falling into the Communist orbit.

Silver bullets, as well as lead, cleared the way for the Red victory.

Comfort from Moscow. One of the Northwest's Nationalist strong men had been General Fu Tso-yi, who was called from the Suiyuan back country to defend North China. Last February, outnumbered and outmaneuvered, Fu surrendered Peiping and his own allegiance to the Communists. Last week his new masters sent him back to Suiyuan to win over a former subordinate, Nationalist Governor Tung Chi-wu, still holding out in Paotow.

Fu was armed with 500,000 silver dollars and 10,000 40-ft. bolts of cloth for winter uniforms. "I'll console and comfort my old troops," said Fu. They needed comfort, for they had not been paid in the past six months and their summer uniforms would be' scant protection in the severe winter ahead.

When wind of Fu's mission reached Canton, the Nationalist high command sent two missions flying northward with silver dollars. They arrived too late, turned back in dejection. Like General Fu, Governor Tung joined the Red army and, as an earnest of his loyalty, turned Suiyuan over to Communist Boss Mao Tse-tung.

Consolation In Mecca. Meanwhile, along Marco Polo's ancient silk trail, a Red army pressed westward from captured Lanchow, toward the important Yumen oilfields, and the Sinkiang oases. Some 40,000 hard-riding but weakly armed Moslem horsemen were the only barrier.

Gone from the Northwest was the former Nationalist hope and Moslem warlord, Governor Ma Pufang of Chinghai (TIME, June 6). Burly, black-bearded Ma had been driven by superior Communist force from his capital Sining. A dispirited fugitive, he rested in a Hong Kong flat last week. But, unlike Fu and Tung, Ma was not ready to bow to Moscow. Last week he announced that he would shortly leave--by airplane on a long pilgrimage to Mecca.

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