Bai Chongxi
Bai Chongxi | |
---|---|
白崇禧 | |
1st Minister of National Defense of the Republic of China | |
In office 23 May 1946 – 2 June 1948 | |
Preceded by | Chen Cheng as Minister of War |
Succeeded by | He Yingqin |
Personal details | |
Born | New Guangxi Clique | 18 March 1893
Commands | Minister Of National Defense, Central China Pacification Director |
Battles/wars |
|
Bai Chongxi (18 March 1893 – 2 December 1966; Chinese: 白崇禧; pinyin: Bái Chóngxī; Wade–Giles: Pai Ch'ung-hsi, IPA: [pɑ́ɪ̯ t͡ʂʰʊ́ŋɕǐ], Xiao'erjing: ﺑَﻰْ ﭼْﻮ ثِ) was a Chinese general in the National Revolutionary Army of the Republic of China (ROC) and a prominent Chinese Nationalist leader.[1] He was of Hui ethnicity and of the Muslim faith. From the mid-1920s to 1949, Bai and his close ally Li Zongren ruled Guangxi province as regional warlords with their own troops and considerable political autonomy. His relationship with Chiang Kai-shek was at various times antagonistic and cooperative. He and Li Zongren supported the anti-Chiang warlord alliance in the Central Plains War in 1930, then supported Chiang in the Second Sino-Japanese War and the Chinese Civil War. Bai was the first defense minister of the Republic of China from 1946 to 1948. After losing to the Communists in 1949, he fled to Taiwan, where he died in 1966.
Warlord era
Bai was born in Guilin, Guangxi and given the courtesy name Jiansheng (健生). He was a descendant of a Persian merchant of the name Baiderluden, whose descendants adopted the Chinese surname Bai. His Muslim name was Omar Bai Chongxi.[2]
He was the second of three sons. His family was said to have come from Sichuan. At the age of 14 he attended the Guangxi Military Cadre Training School in Guilin, a modern-style school run by Cai E to modernize Guangxi's military. Bai and classmates Huang Shaohong and Li Zongren would become the three leading figures of Guangxi's military. For a time Bai withdrew from the military school at the request of his family and studied at the civilian Guangxi Schools of Law and Political Science.
With the outbreak of the
Bai rose to fame during the
The Nationalist chief of staff (acting) was Bai.[4] The 13th Army had him as the commander.[5] The Nationalist Northern Punitive Expedition was participated in by Bai.[5]
During the
In 1928, during the
Bai personally had around 2,000 Muslims under his control during his stay in Beijing in 1928 after the Northern Expedition was completed; it was reported by Time magazine that they "swaggered riotously" in the aftermath[7] In June 1928 in Beijing, Bai Chongxi announced that the forces of the Kuomintang would seize control of Manchuria and the enemies of the Kuomintang would "scatter like dead leaves before the rising wind".
Bai was out of money and bankrupt in December 1928. He planned to lead 60,000 troops from east China to Xinjiang province and construct a railroad as a barrier against Russian encroachment in Xinjiang. His plan was perceived by some to be against Feng Yuxiang.[8] The Military Council refused to authorize him leaving Beiping to go to Hankou.[9]
At the end of the Northern Expedition, Chiang Kai-shek began to agitate to get rid of the Guangxi forces. At one time in 1929 Bai had to escape to Vietnam to avoid harm. Hubei and Guangxi were subjected to the Hankou subcouncil of Li Zongren and Bai Chongxi.[10] Li and Bai's Hankou and Canton self-ruling governments were terminated by Chiang.[11] Hankou was captured by Chiang during the dispute between the Guangxi faction and Nanjing.[12][13] From 1930 to 1936, Bai was instrumental in the Reconstruction of Guangxi, which became a "model" province with a progressive administration. Guangxi supplied over 900,000 soldiers to the war effort against Japan.
During the Chinese Civil War Bai fought against the Communists. In the Long March he allowed the Communists to slip through Guangxi.[14]
Governing his province aptly and capably were two of the things Bai was renowned for in China.[15]
Prominent Muslims like Generals Ma Liang, Ma Fuxiang and Bai Chongxi met in 1931 in Nanjing to discuss intercommunal tolerance between Hui and Han.[16]
Second Sino-Japanese War
The 4th Army Groups chief of staff was Bai Chongxi.[17][18]
An anti-Japanese war was called for by Bai Chongxi, Li Zongren and Chen Jitang in 1936.[19] The menace posed by Japan was seen by Bai Chongxi and Li Zongren.[20]
Formal hostilities broke out on 7 July 1937 between China and Japan with the
Bai's Guangxi soldiers were praised as a "crack" (as in elite) army during the war against Japan, and he was known to be an able general who could lead the Chinese resistance should Chiang Kai-shek be assassinated.[22] The majority of Chinese presumed that Chiang Kai-shek, as leader of China, tapped Bai to inherit his position.[23] Bai Chongxi led the competent Guangxi Army against the Japanese.[24][25]
In refusing to obey commands from Chiang if he assumed them to be wrong and flawed, Bai Chongxi was alone among fellow military men.[26]
Jihad was declared obligatory and a religious duty for all Chinese Muslims against Japan after 1937 during the Second Sino-Japanese War.[27] Bai also sheltered the Muslim Yuehua publication in Guilin, which printed quotes from the Quran and Hadith justifying the need for Chiang Kai-shek as leader of China.[28] Also, promoted Chinese nationalism and uniting Hui to the Han during the war against Japan.[29]
During the war, Bai traveled throughout the Muslim northwestern provinces of China controlled by the
Bai Chongxi headed the Chinese Islamic National Salvation Federation.[34][35] In January 1945, he was awarded the Legion of Merit of the United States.[36]
Chinese Civil War
Following the
In June 1946 Bai was appointed Minister of National Defense.[37] It turned to be a post without power, as Chiang began to bypass Bai on major decisions regarding the Chinese Civil War. Chiang would hold daily briefings in his residence without inviting Bai and began to direct front-line troops personally down to the division level, bypassing the chain of command. The Civil War went poorly for the Kuomintang as Chiang's strategy of holding onto provincial capitals and leaving the countryside to the Communists very quickly caused the downfall of his forces, which had a 4:1 numerical superiority at the beginning of the conflict.
During the Ili Rebellion Bai was considered by the government for the post of Governor of Xinjiang. The position later was given to Masud Sabri, a pro-Kuomintang Uyghur leader.
In April 1948 the first National Assembly in China convened in Nanjing, with thousands of delegates from all over China representing different provinces and ethnic groups. Bai Chongxi, acting as Minister of National Defense, debriefed the Assembly on the military situation, completely ignoring Northern China and Manchuria in his report. Delegates from Manchuria in the assembly responded by yelling out and calling for the death of those responsible for the loss of Manchuria.[38]
In November 1948 Bai, in command of forces in Hankou, met with Generals Fu Zuoyi, Zhang Zhizhong and Chiang Kai-shek in Nanjing about defending Suzhou, the gateway to the Yangzi River valley.[39]
Bai told the Central Political Council of the Kuomintang that negotiating with the Communists would only make them more powerful.[40] Governor of Hunan Cheng Qian, and Bai reached a consensus that they should impede the advance of the Communists by negotiating with them.[41]
In January 1949, with the Communists close to victory, almost everyone in the Nationalist media, political and military command began to demand peace as a slogan and turn against Chiang. Bai Chongxi decided to follow suit with the mainstream current and defied Chiang Kai-shek's orders, refusing to battle Communists near the Huai River and demanding that his soldiers, which were "lent", be sent back to him so he could secure his hold in the province of Guangxi and ignore the central government in Nanjing. Bai was the commander of four armies in Central China in the Hankou region. He demanded that the government negotiate with the Communists like the others.[42] Bai was in charge of the defense of the capital, Nanjing. He sent a telegram requesting that Chiang Kai-shek step down as president, amid a storm of requests by other Kuomintang military and political figures for Chiang to step down and allow a peace deal with the Communists.[43]
When Communist Gen.
Taiwan
The riots following the
Bai had another falling out with Chiang when he supported General
He served Chief of the General Staff since 1927 until his retirement in 1949.[2] After he came to Taiwan, he was the appointed vice director of the strategic advisory commission in the presidential office.[49][50] He also continued to serve in the Central Executive Committee of the Kuomintang. He reorganized the party from 1950 to 1952.[51]
After the Communist victory, some of Bai Chongxi's Guangxi troops fled to French Indochina where they were detained.[52] Others went to Hainan in retreat.[53]
In 1951, Bai Chongxi made a speech to the entire Muslim world calling for a war against the Soviet Union, claiming that the "imperialist ogre" leader
He and Chiang never reconciled and he lived in semi-retirement until he died of coronary thrombosis on 2 December 1966 at the age of 73.[56][57] Bai was then given a military funeral by the government, with a Kuomintang Blue Sky with a White Sun flag over his coffin.[58] Bai was buried in the Muslim section of the Liuzhangli (六張犁) Cemetery in Taipei, Taiwan.[59]
Personal life
As a Muslim, he was Chairman of the Chinese Islamic National Salvation Federation, and then the Chinese Muslim Association.[60] Bai Chongxi was a board member of the All-China Inter-religious Association, representing Islam, the other members of the board were a Catholic bishop, Methodist bishop, and the Buddhist abbot Taixu.[61]
Bai sent his son Pai Hsien-yung to Catholic schools in Hong Kong.[62]
During the Northern Expedition, in 1926 in Guangxi, Bai Chongxi led his troops in destroying Buddhist temples and smashing idols, turning the temples into schools and Kuomintang party headquarters.[63] It was reported that almost all of Buddhist monasteries in Guangxi were destroyed by Bai in this manner. The monks were removed.[64] Bai led a wave of anti-foreignism in Guangxi, attacking American, European, and other foreigners and missionaries, and generally making the province unsafe for foreigners. Westerners fled from the province, and some Chinese Christians were also attacked as imperialist agents.[65]
The three goals of his movement were anti-foreignism, anti-imperialism, and anti-religion. Bai led the anti-religious movement, against superstition.
As a Kuomintang member, Bai and the other Guangxi clique members allowed the Communists to continue attacking foreigners and idols, since they shared the goal of expelling the foreign powers from China, but they stopped Communists from initiating social change.[67]
British diplomats reported that he also drank wine and ate pork.[68][69]
Bai Chongxi was interested in Xinjiang, a predominately Muslim province. He wanted to resettle disbanded Chinese soldiers there to prevent it from being seized by the
Impact
Bai's reputation as a military strategist was well known.[72] Evans Carlson, a United States Marine Corps colonel, noted that Bai "was considered by many to be the keenest of Chinese military men." Edgar Snow went even further, calling him "one of the most intelligent and efficient commanders boasted by any army in the world."
Bai is the father of
Of his ten children, three are still living, scattered across America and Taiwan. Taipei Mayor Hau Lung-pin announced in March 2013 that Bai's tomb will form the basis for a Muslim cultural area and Taiwan historical park.[74]
Bai's maternal grandson Muhammad Ma is a Halal butcher, and travels across Taiwan working to preserve the Taiwanese Islamic Community. He also helps foreign migrants with any legal issues they may face in Taiwan.[75]
See also
References
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