In 2001, notices in the broadsheets announced the death, on October 14th, of â??the last warlord of Manchuriaâ??. A romantic image, perhaps bringing to mind a sturdy character on horseback riding through snow-encrusted mountain passes at the head of a large army. The warlord concerned, Zhang Xueliang (pronounced â??Jarng Syeew-eh-liangâ??), certainly saw plenty of battles and intrigues in his time. Yet he was also, for a decade, one of the most important politicians in China, whose actions had implications not just for Asian, but for global, politics. He had outlived his rivals and contemporaries, including the Nationalist leader Chiang Kai-shek, and the Communist giants Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai. In his lifetime, he saw China change from a dying imperial power, invaded by foreign imperialists, to a nuclear superpower. At his height, Zhang ruled an area the size of France and Germany combined, was the second most powerful military leader in China after Chiang Kai-shek, fought a personal war against the USSR, and even kidnapped his own national leader. Yet his name remains little-known to most Westerners.
Zhang Xueliangâ??s rise and fall are closely linked to the politics of Manchuria, the region now known as â??Northeast Chinaâ??. Manchuria was an area fought over by three great empires, the Chinese, the Japanese, and the Russian, and claims on its territory led to it being dubbed â??the cockpit of powerâ??. In the seventeenth century, the Manchus, who had their homeland in the region, had invaded China, toppling the ruling Ming dynasty, and setting up their own Qing (pronounced â??Chingâ??) dynasty in its place. For 200 years, the Qing ruled a Chinese empire larger than any previous one from the capital at Beijing, but there was relatively little migration by ethnic Chinese into Manchuria itself; those who did move were perhaps on the run from the law, or seeking a new life when economic conditions at home in north China became too harsh.
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