Production of the No.

1 ("Chinese") pistol was halted in October of 1944 (at ser

ial number 1CH6576) because it had proven impossible to get them to the Chinese.
Due to Japanese blockade of China and control of its coastal areas, war aid had
to be airlifted over the Himalayas from India, and limited resources in that re
gard resulted in the pistols being assigned such a low priority that the 4,000 o
r so which had actually made it to Karachi were simply sitting there in stockpil
e, with little likelihood of delivery. Clive indicates that application of the o
riginal six character Mandarin inscription ("National Property of the Republic o
f China") was actually discontinued during May 1944, though it is believed that
all of the 4,000 pistols which had made it to Karachi had the marking. At the ti
me production was halted in October something in the order of 14,000 of that mod
el were still sitting in Canada or being completed by Inglis. It was all these c
ompleted but undeliverable Chinese model pistols which then ended up being diver
ted to Canadian and British service. My example (1CH4149) is one of the pistols
completed toward the end of that "first contract run".
Late in the war (June 1944) production of No. 1 pistols for China was resumed at
serial number 1CH6589 (no explanation provided by Clive for the apparent 12-num
ber gap) and continued up to 5CH9928 when production halted for good in October
1944. The serial number of your examplel unquestionably makes it one of these "s
econd run" No. 1 pistols. Most of these later-production No. 1 pistols did get s
hipped to China - ultimately to be used by one side or the other in the civil wa
r between Nationalist and Communist factions (and possibly even against UN Force
s in Korea - see below.) If I understand correctly, the "second run" Chinese-con
tract pistols were not marked in Canada with any Chinese characters - any such m
arkings were applied in China. As you have already indicated, the particular two
-character mark on yours (Gong Qiang) roughly translates as "Public (or Official
) Gun".
As I'm sure you know, your pistol has unquestionably been refinished - that much
is clear from the fact that the serial numbers on the frame and slide (engraved
through the parkerized finish at time of completion by Inglis) are filled in wi
th finish rather than remaining "in the white". The question is when that refini
shing took place. According to Clive, the post-1949 Republic of China (i.e. Taiw
an) is not known to have refinished or refurbished any of its Inglis pistols in
any way, and they were quickly replaced with .45ACP pistols received as aid from
the United States. As for the People's Republic of China, certainly by the time
of the Korean War Soviet armaments aid had resulted in their standard military
pistol cartridge being the 7.62x25mm Tokarev rather the 9x19mm, but apparently m
any Inglis pistols remained in service until as late as the 1980s, primarily wit
h police and other armed civil units. Clive notes that ".... many pistols later
released as surplus from the People's Republic show evidence of having undergone
at a minimum a complete refinishing, and in some cases a complete overhaul ....
.", apparently in military arsenals.
At the end of the day, I suppose it may never be possible to determine whether y
our pistol is one which was refinished/refurbished by The People's Republic, or
was refinished by a surplus dealer or the like .....