1950

Kuomintang Islamic insurgency in China (1950–58)

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Kuomintang Islamic Insurgency in China (1950-1958)
Part of Chinese Civil War
Date 1950–1958 Location Gansu, Qinghai, Ningxia, Xinjiang, Yunnan Status Communist victory
Belligerents
Republic of China Kuomintang Nationalist Party	Communist Party of China
Commanders and leaders
Chiang Kai-shek Ma Hushan † Han Yimu † Ma Yuanxiang † Ma Liang Ospan Batyr † Yulbars Khan Li Mi Maj. General Ma Chün-kuo Mapang Ma Shou-yi Lt. Gen. Teng Wen-hsiang Li Pin-pu Yeh Chih-nan Kengma T'ussu Han Yu-ch'ing Li Wen-huan	Mao Zedong
Strength
National Revolutionary Army, Hui, Salar insurgents Kazakh mercenaries	People's Liberation Army, Ministry of Public Security
Casualties and losses
Almost all eliminated except for Burmese group	Thousands

[show] v t e Chinese Civil War Major engagements in bold April 12 incident Encirclement Campaigns First Jiangxi Hubei-Henan-Anhui Honghu Hubei-Henan-Shaanxi Shaanxi-Gansu Soviet Second Jiangxi Hubei-Henan-Anhui Honghu Hubei-Henan-Shaanxi Shaanxi-Gansu Soviet Third Jiangxi Hubei-Henan-Anhui Honghu Hubei-Henan-Shaanxi Shaanxi-Gansu Soviet Fourth Jiangxi Hubei-Henan-Anhui Honghu Soviet Fifth v. Jiangxi Soviet Hubei-Henan-Anhui Long March Luding Bridge Intermission Wannan Opening Campaign Yetaishan S. Jiangsu Baoying Yongjiazhen Tianmen Linyi Wuhe Yinji Huaiyin-Huai'an Xinghua Dazhongji Lingbi Zhucheng Lishi Pingdu Taixing Wuli Xiangshuikou Rugao Weiguangnuan Shicun Operation Beleaguer North China Plain S. Tongpu Railway Datong Jining Shangdang Longhai Ruhuang Dingtao Linfu Zhengtai Datong-Puzhou Huaiyin–Huai'an Houma 1st Siping 2nd Siping Lüliang Linjiang Guanzhong 3rd Siping S. Baoding Niangziguan Tang'erli N. Baoding Nanlin Summer 1947, NE China Heshui Meridian Ridge N. Daqing River Autumn 1947, NE China Mt. Funiu Winter 1947, NE China Gongzhutun Phoenix Peak W. Tai'an Linfen Zhouzhang Hebei-Rehe-Chahar Yanzhou Shangcai Liaoshen Changchun Jinzhou Tashan Battle of Jinan Menglianggu Huaihai Shuangduiji Pingjin Tianjin Jiulianshan Taiyuan Shanghai Lanzhou Ningxia Nanchuan Bobai Jianmengguan Bamianshan Tianquan Yiwu KMT Insurgency 1950-58 Burma-China border Island campaigns Quemoy Denbu Nan'ao Hainan Island Dongshan Wanshan Nanpeng Nanri Nanpeng Dalushan Dongshan Yijiangshan Dachen Dong-Yin)

The Kuomintang Islamic Insurgency in China refers to a continuation of the Chinese Civil War by Muslim Kuomintang National Revolutionary Army forces in Northwest China, in the provinces of Gansu, Qinghai, Ningxia, Xinjiang, and another insurgency in Yunnan.

Contents

[hide]

• 1 Origin
• 2 Conflict
• 3 Other insurgencies
  • 3.1 Burma
  • 3.2 Tibet
• 4 See also
• 5 References

Origin[edit source | edit]

The majority of the insurgents were formal members of Ma Bufang's army of the National Revolutionary Army. Several of them were prominent Generals, such as Ma Hushan, who had earlier fought against the Soviets in Xinjiang.
Ma Bufang, Ma Hushan, and the other leaders who led the revolt were all former National Revolutionary Army soldiers and Kuomintang members. Many of the Chinese Muslim insurgents were veterans of the Soviet Invasion of Xinjiang, Sino-Tibetan War, the Second Sino-Japanese War, Ili Rebellion, and the Chinese Civil War. The Muslim insurgents were all Hui people, Salar people, or Dongxiang people.
When Ma Bufang fled after the Ningxia Campaign, he took over $50,000 in military funds and fled to Hong Kong.^[1]
Some Hui Muslim Generals and units from Ningxia, like Ma Hongbin, his son Ma Dunjing, and the 81st Muslim Corps, defected to the Communist People's Liberation Army and joined them.^[2] Many Muslim units in Xinjiang also defected to the Communists.^[3]
Han Youwen, an ethnic Salar Muslim, defected to the Communists and joined the People's Liberation Army. Ma Zhanshan, another Muslim General, also defected to the Communists.
Most former Kuomintang Muslim Generals, like Ma Bufang, Ma Hongkui, his son Ma Dunjing, Bai Chongxi, Ma Jiyuan, Ma Chengxiang and their families fled to Taiwan along with the Republic of China government or to other places like Egypt and the United States when the Communists defeated them. However for those who stayed, the Muslims of Qinghai had other ideas, and decided to revolt against the PLA.

Conflict[edit source | edit]

General Ma Bufang announced the start of the Kuomintang Islamic Insurgency in China, on January 9, 1950, when he was in Cairo, Egypt, saying that Chinese Muslims would never surrender to Communism and would fight a guerrilla war against the Communists.^[4][5] In 1951, Bai Chongxi made a speech to the entire Muslim world calling for a war against Russia, and Bai also called upon Muslims to avoid the Indian leader Jawaharlal Nehru, accusing him of being blind to Soviet imperialism.^[6][7] Bai also called Stalin an ogre and claimed he and Mao were engineering World War Three.^[8][9] Ma Bufang continued to exert "influence" on the insurgent KMT Muslim leaders.^[10]
President Chiang Kai-Shek continued to make contact with and support the Muslim insurgents in northwest China. Kuomintang planes dropped supplies and arms to the Muslims; there were 14,000 former Muslim troops of Kuomintang Muslim Generals Ma Bufang and Ma Hongkui who were supplied by the Kuomintang, and with U.S. Central Intelligence Agency support. They operated in the Amdo region of Tibet in 1952.^[11]
General Ma Hushan, a Kuomintang member and a Muslim, led an insurgency against the PLA from 1950–1954 using guerrilla tactics. Prior to this, he had earlier fought against the Soviet Red Army. He was against the Marxist-Leninist indoctrination of the Communist Party, and he killed hundreds of PLA soldiers in guerrilla ambushes in valleys and mountains. He was captured in 1954 and executed at Lanzhou.^[12][13]
Ospan Batyr, a Turkic Kazakh who was on the Kuomintang payroll, fought for the Republic of China government against the Mongols, then against the Communist PLA invasion of Xinjiang. He was captured and executed in 1951.
Yulbars Khan, a Uyghur who worked for the Kuomintang, led a Chinese Hui Muslim cavalry against CPC forces taking over Xinjiang. In 1951, after most of his troops deserted and defected to the PLA, he fled to Calcutta in India via Tibet, where his men were attacked by the Dalai Lama's Tibetan forces. He managed to escape from the Dalai Lama's grip, and subsequently took a steamer to Taiwan.^[14] The Kuomintang government then appointed him Governor of Xinjiang, a title which he held to until he died in the mid-1970s in Taiwan. His memoirs were published in 1969.^[15]
General Ma Liang, who was related to Ma Bufang, had 2,000 Chinese Muslim troops under his command around Gansu/Qinghai. Chiang Kai-shek sent agents in May 1952 to communicate with him, and Chiang offered him the post of Commander-in-chief of the 103rd Route of the Kuomintang army, which was accepted by Ma. The CIA dropped supplies such as ammunition, radios, and gold at Nagchuka to Ma Liang.^[16] Ma Yuanxiang was another Chinese Muslim General related to the Ma family.^[17] Ma Yuanxiang and Ma Liang wreaked havoc on the Communist forces. In 1953, Mao Zedong was compelled to take radical action against them.^[18] Ma Yuanxiang was then killed by the Communist forces in 1953.^[19]

Other insurgencies[edit source | edit]

Burma[edit source | edit]

Another group of Kuomintang insurgents were in Burma. Many of them were Hui Muslims, like the insurgents in the northwest, but they did not coordinate their attacks with them.
After losing mainland China, a group of approximately 12,000 KMT soldiers escaped to Burma and continued launching guerrilla attacks into southern China. Their leader, General Li Mi, was paid a salary by the ROC government and given the nominal title of Governor of Yunnan. After the Burmese government appealed to the United Nations in 1953, the U.S. began pressuring the ROC to withdraw its loyalists. By the end of 1954, nearly 6,000 soldiers had left Burma and Li Mi declared his army disbanded. However, thousands remained, and the ROC continued to supply and command them, even secretly supplying reinforcements at times.
Since the 1980s, thousands of Muslims from Myanmar and Thailand have migrated to Taiwan in search of a better life. They are descendants of nationalist soldiers that fled Yunnan when the communists took over mainland China.^[20]

Tibet[edit source | edit]

After the insurgency was finished off, the PLA used Hui soldiers, who had served under Ma Bufang to crush the Tibetan revolt in Amdo.^[21]

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Muhammad Omar

Muhammad (Mohammad) Omar, also called Mullah Omar   (born c. 1950–62?, near Kandahār, Afghanistan—died April, 2013, Pakistan), Afghan militant and leader of the Taliban (Pashto: Ṭālebān [“Students”]) who was the emir of Afghanistan (1996–2001). Mullah Omar’s refusal to extradite al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden prompted the United States invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 that overthrew the Taliban government there.

Biographical details about Mullah Omar are sparse and conflicting. He was an ethnic Pashtun of the Ghilzay branch who, reportedly, was born near Kandahar, Afghanistan. He is believed to have been illiterate and — aside from his madrasah studies — to have had minimal schooling. He fought with the mujahideen against the Soviets during the Afghan War (1978–92), and during that time he suffered the loss of his right eye in an explosion.

After the Soviet withdrawal, Mullah Omar established and taught at a small village madrasah in the province of Kandahār. The end of the war did not bring calm, however, and political and ethnic violence escalated thereafter. Claiming to have had a vision instructing him to restore peace, Mullah Omar led a group of madrasah students in the takeover of cities throughout the mid-1990s, including Kandahar, Herat, Kabul and Mazar-e Sharif. In 1996 a shura (council) recognized Mullah Omar as amīr al-muʾminīn(“commander of the faithful”), a deeply significant title in the Muslim world that had been in disuse since the abolition of the caliphate in 1924. That designation also made him emir of Afghanistan, which from October 1997 until the fall of the Taliban was known as the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan. Mullah Omar marked the occasion by removing what was held to be the cloak of the Prophet Muhammad from the mosque in Kandahār where it was housed and donning the relic, effectively symbolizing himself as Muhammad’s successor. The swift takeover of Afghanistan by the Taliban under Mullah Omar is believed to have been funded at least in part by bin Laden, who had moved his base to Afghanistan after his expulsion from Sudan in the mid-1990s.

Under Mullah Omar’s leadership, Pashtun social codes were paramount, and strict Islamic principles were enforced. Education and employment for women all but ceased; capital punishment was enacted for transgressions such as adultery and conversion away from Islam; and music, television, and other forms of popular entertainment were prohibited. Among his most-infamous decisions was an order to demolish the colossal Buddha statues at Bamiyan, culturally significant relics of Afghanistan’s pre-Islamic history. To the outspoken regret of the international community, they were destroyed in 2001.

In the wake of al-Qaeda’s, September 11, 2001, attacks on New York City and Washington, D. C., Mullah Omar’s refusal to extradite bin Laden prompted the United States to launch a series of military operations in Afghanistan. The Taliban government was overthrown, and Mullah Omar fled; his location was undetermined.

Mullah Omar was long notoriously reclusive. Meetings with non-Muslims or with Westerners were almost never granted, and it was unclear whether any of the photographs that purportedly depict him were authentic—circumstances that made the pursuit of him even more difficult. At the end of the first decade of the 21st century, it was believed that Mullah Omar continued to direct Taliban operations from the sanctuary of Pakistan, although the Taliban denied that supposition.

On July 29, 2015, the Afghan government announced that its intelligence service had learned that Mullah Omar had died in April 2013 in Pakistan. The report of Mullah Omar’s death was confirmed by a Taliban representative the next day, and his deputy, Mullah Akhtar Mansour, was announced as his successor.