A few days ago, I received Ms. Li Jianglin’s contribution “Belated Gratitude and Mourning” to this website to commemorate Mr. Li Wei. The article is simple and touching, detailing their “friends of gentlemen” and their concern for the Tibetans, and also specifically mentioned that I hope to use the “obituary” photos of Li Wei’s children that I provided, of course, we included it in the editing process. This feeling and this thing brought back many memories and infinite feelings and longings for that land.

As someone who grew up in Qinghai, the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau is not only a regional concept, but also a reality that is inseparable from history and culture. People who live here will naturally encounter local indigenous Tibetans, Tus, Mongolians, Hui, Sala and other ethnic minorities. It is also a natural part of life to have these people as friends.

The gate of Qinghai Tool Factory (historical photo)

In 1966, when I was three years old, my family moved to Xining City, Qinghai Province with my parents to support the construction of the third line. It had been several years since the Tibetan uprising in 1958 and the subsequent “suppression of rebellion” ended. But even under the guidance of the “decentralized and concealed” third-line construction policy, we are located in a remote and closed quasi-military industrial enterprise, and various legends and brutal and bloody news about the suppression of rebellion in Tibetan areas have been spread one after another. , I often encounter such people and things around me: so-and-so entering Tibet, so-and-so on adventures, including the doctor of the medical school, the driver of the motorcade, the returning soldier, etc., and even familiar judges and neighbors, telling their own versions of counterinsurgency.

All of these versions have one thing in common – either hidden or explicit, full of mystery. The speaker stopped talking, choked the head and the tail; the official did not seem to encourage it, which made people feel a little bit fearful, and most of them avoided or paid no attention, like the elephant in the room. The same is true for me. The history teacher in the middle school occasionally talked about the bloody “counter-insurgency”; the middle school Tibetan at the same table said that his uncle participated in the Tibetan uprising in 1958, and he was sentenced to 20 years. ··

Not listening, not wanting, not believing, an attitude of distancing, it seems that as soon as you get close, it becomes worse and becomes a class enemy.

After ten years of doing business, I returned to the locality to run the East Lake Hotel and travel between Beijing and the Northwest. During this time, I made many friends in various fields.

Probably one summer evening in 2011, a city leader from Xining came to the hotel restaurant for dinner. Because he came earlier, they chatted together. He said: Back then, the prisoners who were pulled from Yushu and Guoluo Prefecture in Tibetan areas were packed in stuffy tank trucks, crowded “like canned sardines”, and they walked from the pastoral area to Xining Prison for nearly a week without eating or eating. There was no ventilation, and the winter in the grasslands was very cold. When I got to the place, “the car door was opened, and a lot of prisoners fell from the inside. Their bodies fell straight down like logs. The rows behind them all froze to death. It was very miserable.” The people who got out of the car were prostrate on the ground begging for water, but at that time, most of the onlookers were brainwashed by the CCP, and they were very unfriendly to them, and they did not give clean water on purpose…”.

I was shocked, like never before! Because he was familiar with the leader, and everyone talked a lot, he reflected on this and believed that the policy of suppressing the rebellion at that time was incorrect and inhumane, and he also questioned the CCP and the Han nationality.

On the whole, there is still some space for thinking and reflection in the Jianghu era . People inside and outside the system are also constantly exploring and trying to expand a larger space. The two sides are constantly fighting each other.

This incident greatly stimulated me, and I couldn’t calm down for a long time. That scene, like a movie scene, kept replaying in my mind, reminded me of another memorable event not long ago: a senior public security official came to the hotel for a meeting. He was a Hui from the Mainland, and he looked very orthodox and usually stern. When talking about his place of origin, he said, “My hometown is in the mountainous area of ​​XX, and all the good and farmable places are occupied by the Han people, and the ethnic minorities are all in the border areas.” At that time, he was dumbfounded and speechless.

Bit by bit, together with many friends of various ethnic groups around me, made me start to think and pay attention to minority issues. I want to do something for them, for the Tibetans.

The time has come. Around 2014, a church in Lanzhou sent a letter saying that a certain church member wanted to find information in Guide County for his father’s “rebellion” and rehabilitate him, and asked me to help. I didn’t know these materials, but I was startled when I saw them. From then on, I started my research on the Tibetan uprising in Qinghai in 1958 and the bloody genocide in the name of “counterinsurgency”.

The Tibetan “rebellion” in the late 1950s began in March 1956. The first shot of the Tibetan uprising was fired in Litang County, Xikang Province at that time, and then it spread rapidly. From 1957 to Gannan Tibetan area in Gansu, from 1958 to 1958 from Qinghai Tibetan area to the core Tibet area, this uprising involved the three provinces of Yunnan, Sichuan and Gansu, most of Qinghai and the whole territory of Tibetan people against the tyranny of the CCP , to 1974, the Sishui Liugang Weijiao Army ended the resistance movement for more than ten years. More than a quarter of China’s “territory” was involved. The CCP used the Lanzhou Military Region, Chengdu Military Region, Beijing Military Region, the army, air force, aviation and other arms of the regular army and the latest Soviet-style equipment to carry out unprecedented massacres in Tibetan areas.

This is the declaration of war by the Beijing regime against the entire Tibetan people, and it is a real ” civil war with invisible gunpowder”. The Tibetan people resisted heroically and paid a huge price and loss, sacrificing countless lives.

The uprising in Qinghai Province began on April 17, 1958. On that day, an armed riot broke out in Xunhua Salar Autonomous County , the hometown of the 10th Panchen Lama . It started when the highly respected Kanaihua Rinpoche—the teacher of the 10th Panchen Lama and the deputy head of Xunhua County—was trapped in the name of a meeting. Under the leadership of the shepherd of Gangcha Township, Nu Rihongbu demanded the release of Kanaihua Rinpoche, detained the secretary of the township party branch, cut off the utility pole, and killed the leader of the work group. Then the headmen of the Salar tribe also joined in, and the two tribes joined forces to besiege the county seat, known in history as the ” Xunhua Incident”, which kicked off a large-scale uprising in the Tibetan area of ​​Qinghai.

At that time, Qinghai Province governed one prefecture-level city , one administrative office, and six autonomous prefectures , namely Xining City, Haidong Region, Haibei Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Hainan Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Huangnan Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Yushu Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Guoluo Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, and Haixi Mongolian Autonomous Prefecture. Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture. Except for Xining and Haixi, the rest of the six prefectures were caught in, especially the three prefectures of Hainan, Guoluo, and Yushu, which were the most serious ones, which were regarded as ‘all rebel areas’. The war between the two sides was particularly brutal. The local people suffered serious casualties and massacres. Happens here a lot.

During the investigation, we successively went to the scene on the banks of the Yellow River in Kesheng Township, Henan County, Huangnan Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, where thousands of Tibetan civilians fleeing the war were encircled by the anti-insurgency forces and rushed into the surging Yellow River (Li Jianglin’s “Dang Iron” Birds Flying Through the Sky, p. 245), met the survivors whose parents buried their children in the sand on the beach to avoid bullets; went to the scene of the “Guinan Massacre” where civilians and women were executed indiscriminately; The “Crossing Horse Camp Massacre” where 20 or 30 Tibetans were gathered in the conference room. It also systematically organized and researched the racial killings carried out by the CCP in the province under the name of counterinsurgency . Because of the common concern for Tibetan issues, he naturally met many old friends of the Tibetan people—the Han cadres who aided Tibet and cared about the well-being of the Tibetan people, Li Wei is one of them.

The first time I saw Mr. Li Wei was around the winter of 2017. It was cold that day, and he lived with his sick wife in an elderly care center near Hepingmen in Beijing (can’t remember exactly) . His wife is a famous announcer of Qinghai Provincial People’s Broadcasting Station . She studied broadcasting in northern Shaanxi when she was young . He is xx’s husband, and he himself joked that ” I am a family member”.

His wife is very ill. The so-called elderly care center is between the hotel and the inpatient department. Although it is located in a remote location, it takes several alleys to find it, but it provides meals and distributes medicines. There are nurses on duty, and it is very convenient to take care of the elderly.

In this dilapidated three-story building, crowded with patients. The couple lived in a small house with two narrow beds, not even one meter wide, with a small table in the middle. There was no spare room in the room, so I had to sit on his wife’s bed after I entered, chat for a while and then leave.

The center was overcrowded, and there were also patients sitting in the corridor. Some of them seemed to be in poor spirits, sitting and talking to themselves. The atmosphere there is not very good, and the air is not well circulated, but the management is very strict, visits are limited to a limited time, and the door is often locked because some patients cannot come back after going out. He took me to the gate to make an appointment to see you again. On the way back, on the pedestrian bridge leading to the subway, a small armed police soldier in full uniform and an army green coat stood upright in the freezing cold, “What happened again?”, I secretly asked, so many The subway, so many exits, how much manpower and how much does it cost! The wary eyes of the little warrior looked at the people passing by, disturbing and adding to the chill of winter.

Soon I went to see him again, and we discussed making an oral history for him. After we got acquainted, we directly made an appointment to meet at a small teahouse nearby.

Mr. Li Wei is tall, dignified, erudite, and well-versed. His writing is better than many awards. In particular, he has the feelings of the old generation of intellectuals . He is full of feelings for the country and the nation. He hopes that China can realize democracy as soon as possible. He was assigned to Qinghai in March 1950 and retired in 1992. He worked here for 42 years. He was the head of the Guangming Daily reporter station and knew the local situation very well. Naturally, we talked about the Tibetan uprising in 1958, the expansion of “counterinsurgency”, and the current Tibet-related policy.

At that time, it was obvious that Xi Jinping was going backwards and accelerating the overall retrogression. The 709 arrests and various tightenings were also in progress. “The climate has changed”, we are all extra careful. He pointed to the Beijing aunt who was sitting on the pony bar in the center of the hutong and said, “This kind of thing is actually happening now” – the Beijing aunt stood in the middle of the hutong road and could block anyone she wanted to check in and out without any formalities. personnel, or to publicize “Party’s policies.

We were all aware of the sensitivity of conversation and talked in a low voice. Fortunately, there was no one else in the teahouse at that time, and the owner was busy with his own business and did not pay attention to us. Instead, we stared at him, watched him, and hoped that no one else would show up in the teahouse. This was the happiest time we talked. In the past, his wife was worried that he would make mistakes, and often reminded him not to talk too much or interrupt his conversation, which greatly affected communication.

Mr. Li Wei is an honest and responsible person. In 1984, the sensational “Yang Xiaomin case” involving the murder of the son of the provincial party committee leader took a great risk to write an article and report it to Beijing, which eventually caused the officials’ children to subdue the law, which was applauded by the people.

It takes great courage and wisdom to sue local officials to the central government in China, otherwise the consequences will be disastrous. He has worked in the propaganda system for decades at a very high theoretical level. His work in the ideological field and his experience at the grassroots level have made him deeply feel the false propaganda and brutal rule of the CCP. ethnic relations.

He talked about experiencing the brutal and indiscriminate killing of counter-revolutionaries at the beginning of the CCP’s founding in 1950: at that time, not only did “there was a method of tick-tick execution on the notice”, but also “there were no posters, no notices, and nothing at all.” Killing in secret, or killing at will.

He said that one night, he came home after working overtime. The unit is very close to the dormitory, and you can walk along the city wall, but suddenly he tripped under his feet. When he touched it with his hand, he was dead. He looked at the ground with blood, and there was a large area lying on the ground. He was so scared that he ran away. . The next day, I went to the unit to find out, but I didn’t see the general execution announcement at that time.

He had witnessed with his own eyes an intellectual woman who was bound and rushed to the execution ground during the suppression of the rebellion. At that time, the woman was very calm, faced bravely, and was unafraid, and her outstanding temperament deeply influenced him. Even after more than 60 years, the old man still remembers the female prisoner so deeply, and bluntly said that he has never seen such a beautiful and dignified woman – “Even if all the movie stars are superimposed, they can’t make such a style.” He has always wondered what crime this “female spy” committed and was executed, and what made her so firm in her beliefs and face life and death calmly.

Mr. Li Wei has done many useful things, and his greatest contribution is to promote the work of rehabilitating the “1958 Rebellion”.

For a long time, the Tibetan people have great opinions on the unlimited expansion of the “counter-insurgency” , excessive killings, and massive confiscation of property. Yushu Prefecture, the only Kham region in Qinghai, suffered the most deaths. Here, a Tibetan elder said angrily to the author, “In 1958, there were too many murders, too many deaths, and people died or were arrested in every tent (house). I checked them one by one.” nervous.

From 1957 to 1963, the total Tibetan population decreased by about 20% (“Qinghai Provincial Chronicle: Population Chronicle”, p. 87, Xi’an Publishing House, September 2000, first edition). This is an official record, but the actual figure is much higher than this. A Jia Rinpoche , the well-known host of the Ta’er Monastery in Qinghai, once confirmed to himself that only his family, including his father, relatives and scripture teachers, were “twenty-eight or nine people” who were arrested and killed in the massacre (“The Wind and the Water”) p. 200).

According to the Qinghai Provincial Party Committee Document No. 55 in 1982, a total of 85,285 people were arrested for the crime of rebellion, accounting for nearly 5% of the total population of the province at that time. The Qinghai census figure of the High Court is 9.1% of the total population of pastoral areas (“Qinghai Province Four Years ( 58-61) People’s Court Work Summary Report 1962.12.22). Among them, the average number of people arrested in Yushu Prefecture and Guoluo Prefecture in the hardest-hit areas is as high as 15% of the total local population, while the proportion of Xinghai County in Hainan Prefecture is the highest. Among them, the Tibetan population has decreased by 28%, and the number of people who have been trained ( concentration camp) accounts for 44% of the total population. %, of which more than 70% were women and children; followed by Qumalai County, Yushu Prefecture, where 1/3 of the total population was arrested (see Annex 1, 1958 Qinghai Counterinsurgency Expanded Statistical Table).

These lost lives are mainly young and middle-aged men , so that there are no men on the grassland (the local name for Tibetan pastoral areas), and the rest are women and children. After listening to my oral history, several people said to me, “Go to the pastoral area to do it, there are no men in our grasslands” – shocking, this shocking statement was confirmed in the subsequent investigation by our team.

In the early 1980s, China entered the era of reform and opening up led by Deng Xiaoping. The social environment was loosened , and many problems since the founding of the Communist Party of China were reflected and corrected. Therefore, Li Wei seized the opportunity to write an internal reference (Appendix 2) as a reporter for Guangming Daily in early 1980, calling for the vindication of the “counter-insurgency” expansion, which became a fuse. Following the instructions of Zhaxi Wangxu, then deputy secretary of the Qinghai Provincial Party Committee (Annex 3. Introduction to Zhaxi Wangxu), it attracted the attention of the central government, which finally promoted the rehabilitative expansion of “counter-insurgency”, and the central government allocated 16.7 million yuan for Special funds for redress (Appendix 4. Document No. [41] of the United Front Work Department of Qinghai Provincial Party Committee ” Report on Funds for Solving the Problems Left over from the Expansion of Rebellion in 1958″).

This incident has changed the fate of hundreds of thousands of Tibetan people and families. The Tibetan people thanked him. In the year of his vindication, ” At the ethnic minority gala held by the Provincial Party Committee, Comrade Zhaxiwangxu, Secretary of the Provincial Party Committee, specially introduced me to the participants of all ethnic groups. Everyone applauded for a long time and expressed their praise. I am very moved.” ( Reprinted by Li Wei in “China Affairs” www.chinaaffaairs.org )

Qinghai Province is a backward area with a sparse population and mixed ethnic groups. Historically, the Han people were mostly exiled and sent to the frontiers, and this was also the case after the establishment of the Communist Party of China. Daxing Prison, confinement of serious political prisoners (Mr. Wei Jingsheng was imprisoned here), exiled rightists, out-of-position cadres (Tao Siliang, etc.), various disciplined personnel, and the reorganization of the third-tier construction sites, systematically relocated enterprises from the mainland, forming a local Unique new immigrant society – highly mobile and without local power.

The local rulers are almost all foreign officials, and they are also the rear bases of the frontier front line (Xinjiang and Tibet) , especially the Tibet-related bases, which are small places with simple folk customs. According to the “Qinghai Daily” on June 16, 2021, among the permanent residents of Qinghai Province, the Han population is 2,993,534, accounting for 50.53%; the population of various ethnic minorities is 2,930,423, accounting for 49.47%. Compared with 2010, the population of Han nationality increased by 10,018 people, an increase of 0.34%, and the proportion decreased by 2.49 percentage points; the population of various ethnic minorities increased by 287,217 people, an increase of 10.87%, and the proportion increased by 2.49 percentage points.There are a group of “old Tibet” cadres who aided Tibet in those years, and they have many intersections with Tibetan areas. They have a high level of education, are upright, have strong responsibility and responsibility, oppose Han chauvinism, are very concerned about the situation in Tibetan areas and the lives of Tibetans , empathize with the suffering of Tibetan people, and have a profound understanding of ethnic relations and the future of the country. concerns. At the same time, there are also many Tibetan cadres who have participated in it. They have written books or published articles, and they have huge influence, which is called the “Qinghai phenomenon”. For example, Li Wei, Han Youren, Yin Shusheng, Ma Wanli (former secretary of the provincial party committee),Dhargye,Zhao Zhenhua ,Tsering Thondup,Naktsang etc., as well as many obscure persons of conscience inside and outside the system.

Li Wei’s anxiety and sympathy for ethnic policies are beyond words. Not only did he practice it himself, but he also supported and encouraged Mr. Han Youren, a friend in the system, and ran for Han Youren’s book “A Submerged Civil War”, which reflected the suppression of rebellion massacres in Tibetan areas in Qinghai. contact and advocate for the author when he is persecuted.

When it comes to the most thrilling details of the campaign for rehabilitating that year, it must have happened after Li Wei’s report was reported to Secretary Tashi Wangxu. At that time, most of the ruling cadres were the beneficiaries of “counterinsurgency”, especially among Tibetan cadres, this problem was quite prominent. Back then, they were brainwashed by the CCP. In the “counter-insurgency”, they took the lead in killing their compatriots, frying their flesh and blood, and persecuting them. It can even be said that they climbed up on the bones of their compatriots. If they are rehabilitated, it means that they have done wrong in the past, and they will not be able to step down or face it. There are cadres at all levels of the resisters, and there will be great resistance. Of course, they are also tools and pawns of the CCP, and ultimately victims.

In view of this, it is said that in order to reduce resistance, Secretary Tashi Wangxu went to Beijing alone, without saying hello to the provincial party committee before his departure, he went to Beijing to “accidentally meet” Deng Xiaoping, reported to Deng the expansion of “counter-insurgency”, and finally held Deng Xiaoping . Only after the signature of the class will be returned to the youth, and a large-scale rehabilitative movement will be officially launched. Li Wei knows the whole process. As a party, there are many wonderful details in it, all of which are precious historical materials. We made an appointment to wait for his wife to be discharged from the hospital and settle down. We will go to my house in Xishan to do this oral history. He will make preparations first. Then he will tell the details of what he experienced in that year and provide written documents, in order to leave the historical truth for future generations.

After that, I called him several times, because I was busy and traveled a lot, and we never met the right time for both sides. By 2018, Xi Jinping was reactionary and retrogressed, tightened comprehensively, and the situation was getting worse and worse. There were obvious police signs in my residences in Beijing and Qinghai . I called and urged him to go up the mountain to sit, but he had no idea that the situation was urgent , so he always said no, wait, wait for the right time. At the end of that year, I went into exile in the United States. In view of his age, his children were in important positions in the system, and he was afraid of being implicated, he had little contact. Unexpectedly, a friend sent an obituary about him soon after, and he passed away on October 22, 2020. .

I lost another comrade, a respected elder, and took away history and conscience, and I felt very sad in my heart.Mr. Li Wei was a representative of conscientious intellectuals of their era. In the process of the CCP’s unremitting efforts to instill Marxist theory, he realized the evil truth of Marxism and realized that Marxism is not suitable for China, and China will ultimately take the road of democratic constitutionalism. He has a deep understanding of the brutal rule of the CCP and has a personal experience of the suffering of the people. He adheres to justice, moral conscience, and common sense of human nature, but an ordinary person has done an extraordinary cause, stood up to speak up, and tried his best to save the disaster caused by the massacres to the Tibetan people. .While expressing our respect for Mr. Li Wei, we should not forget that the CCP’s rule is the source of our motherland’s suffering. We should always remember those who, like Li Wei, have made sacrifices and sacrifices for fairness, justice, and the realization of constitutional democracy in China. A man of lofty ideals with a life and great personal cost.

Mr. Li Wei, lastly, please allow me, on behalf of the Tibetan compatriots who cannot speak out in China, to thank you for everything you have done for them, and for your support and help to them. At the same time, he exhorted himself to be a friend of the Tibetan people, continue to pay attention to and support the cause of the Tibetan people, and work together with brothers and sisters of all ethnic groups to preserve their own culture, strive for freedom and fairness, and realize China’s constitutional democracy!Mr. Li Wei, I salute you and the conscientious Chinese you represent!Anna Wang

July 21, 2022 in Washington