The Snows of Ürümchi: Discourses of Mobilization in Late Republican-Era Xinjiang

Abstract: This article examines the coverage of snow removal campaigns in the city of Ürümchi by the Chinese-language Xinjiang Daily ( Xinjiang ribao ) between 1937 and 1949. According to the discourse articulated by the state-controlled Daily , winter snow and resulting spring muds threatened the modern future toward which the newspaper and its editors sought to advance the city. During both the Sheng Shicai era (1933–1942) and the subsequent Nationalist era (1943–1949), snow removal was thus portrayed by the newspaper as requiring the mobilization of city residents. The Daily presented such mobilization as requiring a shifting combination of citizen participation and supervision by police and neighborhood headmen. The Daily ’s coverage of snow removal thus provides a striking example of the manner in which Ürümchi’s natural environment was used to construct and justify expansive state apparatus and citizen mass mobilization in the late Republican period in a manner that was also remarkably congruent with pre-and post-1949 efforts in China Proper.