Alptekin fled the Communist takeover of Xinjiang through the Himalayas, reaching Ladakh in Indian-controlled Kashmir and going into exile in Turkey. In 1954, he and Muhammad Amin Bughra went to Taiwan to try to persuade the Kuomintang government of the Republic of China to drop its claims to Xinjiang. Their demand was rejected and Taiwan affirmed that it claimed Xinjiang as "an integral part of China".