Date of Birth: 
Place of Birth: Kaiyuan, Liaoning, China
About Sheng Shicai
- Sheng Shicai (Chinese: ???; pinyin: Shèng Shìcái; Wade–Giles: Sheng Shih-ts'ai; 3 December 1895 – 13 July 1970) was a Chinese warlord who ruled Xinjiang from 1933 to 1944.
- Sheng's rise to power started with a coup d'état in 1933 when he was appointed the duban or Military Governor of Xinjiang.
- His rule over Xinjiang is marked by close cooperation with the Soviet Union, allowing the Soviets trade monopoly and exploitation of resources, which effectively made a small part of Xinjiang a Soviet puppet state.
- The Soviet era ended in 1942, when Sheng approached the Nationalist Chinese government, but still retained much power over the province.
- He was dismissed from post in 1944 and named Minister of Agriculture and Forestry.
- Growing animosity against him led the government to dismiss him again and appoint to a military post.
- At the end of the Chinese Civil War, Sheng fled mainland China to Taiwan with the rest of Kuomintang. Sheng Shicai was a Manchurian-born Han Chinese, educated in Tokyo, Japan, where he studied political economy and later attended the Imperial Japanese Army Academy.
- Having become a Marxist in his youth, Sheng participated in the anti-imperialist May Fourth Movement in 1919.
- He participated in the Northern Expedition, a military campaign of the Kuomintang against the Beiyang government. In winter of 1929, he was called into service of Governor Xinjiang Jin Shuren, where he served as Chief of Staff of the Frontier Military and Chief Instructor at the Provincial Military College.
- With the Kumul Rebellion ongoing, Jin was overthrown in a coup on 12 April 1933, and Sheng was appointed duban or Military Governor of Xinjiang.
- Since then, he led a power struggle against his rivals, of whom Ma Zhongying and Zhang Peiyuan were most notable.
- The first to be removed was the coup leaders and by them appointed Civil Governor Liu Wenlong by September 1933.
- Ma and Zhang were defeated militarily by June 1934 with the help from the Soviet Union, whom Sheng invited to intervene, subordinating himself to the Soviet in return. As ruler of Xinjiang, Sheng implemented his Soviet-inspired policies through his political program of Six Great Policies, adopted in December 1934.
- His rule was marked by his nationality policy which promoted national and religious equality and identity of various nationalities of Xinjiang.
- The province saw a process of modernisation, but also the subordination of economic interests in Soviet favour.
- The Soviets had a monopoly over Xinjiang trade and exploited its rare materials and oil.
- In 1937, in parallel with the Soviet Great Purge, Sheng conducted a purge on his own, executing, torturing to death and imprisoning 100,000 people, the majority of which were Uyghurs.With the Soviets distracted by its war with Germany, Sheng approached the Chinese government in July 1942 and expelled the Soviet military and technical personnel.
- However, he still maintained effective power over Xinjiang.
- In the meantime, the Soviets managed to hold off the Germans and the Japanese launched an extensive offensive against the Chinese, which led Sheng to try to change sides again by arresting the Kuomintang officials and invoking Soviet intervention for the second time in 1944.
- The Soviets ignored the request, and the Chinese government removed him from the post naming him Minister of Agriculture and Forestry in August 1944. Sheng held the ministerial post by July 1945, and later worked as an adviser to Hu Zongnan and held a military post.
- He joined the rest of the Kuomintang in Taiwan after the defeat in the Chinese Civil War in 1949.
- In Taiwan, Sheng lived in a comfortable retirement and died in Taipei in 1970.
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