In
Shanghai, the Islamic School's directors were hostile to the incitement of subversion, which was motivated by a desire to instigate trouble between Muslims and the government-supported Japanese agent. The
Guangxi Clique included
Bai Chongxi, who founded a pan-Muslim organization. Japan's attempt to get the Muslim
Hui people on its side failed because many generals such as Bai Chongxi,
Ma Hongbin,
Ma Hongkui, and
Ma Bufang were Hui and fought against the
Imperial Japanese Army. The Japanese attempted to approach Ma Bufang but could not reach an agreement with him. He ended up supporting the anti-Japanese Imam
Hu Songshan, who prayed for the destruction of the Japanese. and was such an obstruction to Japanese agents who were trying to contact the
Tibetans that he was called an "adversary" by a Japanese agent. A
Zhengzhou-based Muslim youth corps launched assaults against the Japanese in
Anhui,
Shanxi, and
Henan. The anti-Japanese
Kuomintang maintained the allegiance of the Ma Clique. The Hui
Yang Jingyu was killed in action while he was fighting the Japanese. The
Dungans (Hui people who migrated to the Turkic regions of the Russian Empire) had
anti-Japanese sentiment.
Ma Biao, a Muslim general who led Muslim cavalry to fight against the Japanese during the
Second Sino-Japanese War, had fought during the
Boxer Rebellion under General
Ma Haiyan as a private at the
Battle of Peking against the
Eight-Nation Alliance, which included the Japanese. "恨不得馬踏倭鬼，給我已死先烈雪仇，與後輩爭光"。"I am eager to stomp on the dwarf devils (a derogatory term for Japanese), I will give vengeance for the already-dead martyrs, achieving glory with the younger generation," said by Ma Biao with reference to his service in the Boxer Rebellion during which he had fought the Japanese before the Second World War. In 1937, when the Japanese attack at the
Battle of Beiping–Tianjin began, the Chinese government was notified by Muslim General
Ma Bufang in a telegram message that he was prepared to bring the fight to the Japanese. Immediately after the
Marco Polo Bridge Incident, Ma Bufang arranged for a cavalry division under Muslim General
Ma Lu 馬祿 and another cavalry division under the Muslim General
Ma Biao to be sent eastward to fight the Japanese. Ethnic Turkic
Salar Muslims made up the majority of the first cavalry division that was sent by Ma Bufang. Ma Biao annihilated the Japanese at the
Battle of Huaiyang. When the Japanese asked the Muslim General
Ma Hongkui to defect and to become head of a Muslim
puppet state under the Japanese, Ma responded through Zhou Baihuang, the Ningxia Secretary of the Kuomintang to remind the Japanese military chief of staff Itagaki Seishiro that many of his relatives fought and died in battle against Eight-Nation Alliance forces during the Battle of Peking during the Boxer Rebellion, including his uncle
Ma Fulu, and that since Japanese troops had made up the majority of the Alliance forces, there would be no co-operation with the Japanese. Even before the war had begun, the Chinese Muslim General
Ma Zhanshan was fighting and severely mauling the Japanese Army in Manchuria. The Japanese officer
Doihara Kenji approached him in an attempt to persuade him to defect. He pretended to defect to the Japanese, used the money that they had given him to rebuild his army, and fought them again by leading a
guerrilla campaign in
Suiyuan. The Japanese themselves noted that
Chiang Kai-shek relied upon Muslim generals like Ma Zhanshan and Bai Chongxi during the war. British telegrams from the
British Raj in 1937 said that Chinese-speaking Muslims like
Ma Zhongying and
Ma Hushan had reached an agreement with the Soviets, whom they had fought. As the Japanese had begun full-scale warfare with China, the Tungans, led by Ma Zhongying and Ma Hushan, helped the Chinese forces battle Japan. The Soviets released Ma Zhongying, and he and Ma Hushan returned to
Gansu.
Sven Hedin wrote that Ma Hushan would "certainly obey the summons" to help China against Japan in the war. In 1937, the Chinese government picked up intelligence that the Japanese planned a puppet Hui Muslim country around
Suiyuan and
Ningxia and that they had sent agents to the region. The Japanese planned to invade
Ningxia from Suiyuan in 1939 and to create a Hui puppet state. The next year, the Japanese were defeated by the Kuomintang Muslim General Ma Hongbin, which caused their plan to collapse. Ma Hongbin's Hui Muslim troops launched further attacks against Japan at the
Battle of West Suiyuan. Muslim Generals
Ma Hongkui and Ma Hongbin defended west Suiyuan, especially at the
Battle of Wuyuan in 1940. Ma Hongbin commanded the 81st Corps and suffered heavy casualties but eventually repulsed the Japanese and defeated them. Hu Songshan also ordered for all Imams in Ningxia to preach
Chinese nationalism. The Muslim General Ma Hongkui assisted him in that order by making nationalism required at every mosque. Hu Songshan led the
Ikhwan, the Chinese Muslim Brotherhood, which became a Chinese nationalist patriotic organization that stressed education and independence of the individual. The China Islamic Association issued "A message to all Muslims in China from the Chinese Islamic Association for National Salvation" during
Ramadan in 1940: We have to implement the teaching "the love of the fatherland is an article of faith" by
Muhammad and to inherit the Hui's glorious history in China. In addition, let us reinforce our unity and participate in the twice more difficult task of supporting a defensive war and promoting religion.... We hope that ahongs [imams] and the elite will initiate a movement of prayer during Ramadan and implement group prayer to support our intimate feeling toward Islam. A sincere unity of Muslims should be developed to contribute power towards the expulsion of Japan. The saying "patriotism is part of iman [faith]" was quoted by Chinese Muslims like Ma Hongdao during the war against Japan. He believed that the Hui were not an
ethnic minority but only a
religious minority and supported Chinese nationalism without ethnic divisions, and the idea of
Zhonghua minzu (Chinese nation) against domestic and foreign imperialist enemies. He took his ideas on nationalism from Turkists like Gökalp. The
Sufi scholar
Zhang Chengzhi noted that during the war, Hui Muslims were suspicious of the intentions of Japanese researchers and deliberately concealed important religious information from them when they were interviewed. During the war against Japan, the Imams supported Muslim resistance in battle, calling for Muslims to participate in the jihad against Japan and become
shahids (martyrs). At the
Battle of Wuyuan, the Hui Muslim cavalry, led by Ma Hongbin and
Ma Buqing, defeated the Japanese troops. Ma Hongbin was also involved in the offensive against the Japanese at the
Battle of West Suiyuan. The Muslim Generals Ma Hongkui and Ma Bufang protected
Lanzhou with their cavalry troops and put up such a resistance that the Japanese never captured Lanzhou during the war. Ma Bufang sent the Muslim Brigade Commander, Major General Ma Buluan (马步銮), who led the 1st Regiment of the Nationalist Reorganized 8th Cavalry Brigade, which was originally known as the 1st Cavalry Division and later renamed the 8th Cavalry Division during the war. The brigade was stationed in eastern
Henan and fought a number of battles against the Japanese invaders, who grew to fear the nationalist cavalry unit and called it "Ma's Islamic Division". The Qinghai Chinese, Salar, Chinese Muslim, Dongxiang, and Tibetan troops, whom Ma Bufang had sent under General Ma Biao, fought to the death against the Japanese Army or committed suicide, instead of surrendering. When they defeated the Japanese, the Muslim troops killed all of them except for a few prisoners, who were sent back to Qinghai to prove that the Chinese had won. In September 1940, when the Japanese made an offensive against the Muslim Qinghai troops, the Muslims ambushed the Japanese and forced them to retreat. Ma Biao was a relative of Ma Budang, who was the eldest son of Ma Haiqing, who was the sixth younger brother of
Ma Haiyan, the grandfather of Ma Bufang. The stature of Ma Biao rose over his role in the
Qinghai–Tibet War, and later in 1937, his battles against the Japanese propelled him to fame nationwide in China. The control of China over the border area of Kham and Yushu with Tibet was guarded by the Qinghai army. Chinese Muslim schools used the victory in the war against Tibet to show how they defended the integrity of China's territory, as it had been put into danger since the Japanese invasion. In the town of Huangzhong, in Qinghai, a journalist sat in a classroom of a literacy school in 1937. One student said, "I am a Qinghai person from China. No... wait, I am a Chinese person from Qinghai" after he had been asked about his nationality by the teacher. The teacher mentioned the Japanese invasion and that they were all being attacked were all brothers and Chinese. Ma Bufang complied and moved several thousand troops to the border with Tibet. Chiang also threatened the Tibetans with bombing if they did not comply. Ma Bufang was openly hostile to the Tibetan
Ngolok peoples. His Muslim troops launched what David S. G. Goodman calls "a campaign of
ethnic cleansing" in
Tibetan Ngolok areas in Qinghai during the war and destroyed their
Tibetan Buddhist temples. During the war, the American Asiatic Association published an entry in
Asia: journal of the American Asiatic Association, Volume 40, concerning the question of whether Chinese Muslims were Chinese or a separate "ethnic minority." It addressed the issue of whether all Muslims in China were united into one race. It came to the conclusion that the Japanese military spokesman was the only person who was propagating the false assertion that "Chinese Mohammedans" had "racial unity." The Japanese claim was disproved when it became known that Muslims in China were composed of a multitude of races, as separate from one another as were the "Germans and English", such as the Mongol Hui of Hezhou, Salar Hui of Qinghai, Chan Tou Hui of Turkistan, and Chinese Muslims. The Japanese were trying to spread the false claim that Chinese Muslims were one race to propagate the claim that they should be separated from China into an "independent political organization." The Chinese Kuomintang also sought the
Khampas' help in defending
Sichuan from Japan, since the temporary capital was there. A Khampa member of the Mongolian Tibetan Academy was Han Jiaxiang. == See also ==