Kuomintang in Burma
The Kuomintang in Burma, also known as the Thai-Burmese Lone Army or Kuomintang in the Golden Triangle, which was officially known as the Yunnan Anti-Communist National Salvation Army were troops of the Republic of China Army loyal to the Kuomintang that fled from China to Burma in 1950 after their defeat by the Chinese communists in the Chinese Civil War. They were commanded by Lieutenant-General Li Mi and, over the course of their existence, attempted several incursions into Yunnan in the early 1950s, only to be pushed back into Burma each time by the People's Liberation Army.
The entire campaign, with logistical support from the Republic of China which had retreated to Taiwan, the United States, and Thailand, was controversial from the start, as it weakened Burmese sovereignty and introduced the KMT's involvement in the region's lucrative opium trade. In 1953, the frustrated Burmese government appealed to the United Nations and put international pressure on the Republic of China to withdraw its troops to Taiwan the following year. As a result, the United States initiated a Four-Nation Military Commission to negotiate the KMT withdrawal. On 30 May 1954, General Li Mi announced the dissolution of the Yunnan Province Anti-Communist National Rescue Army. However, 6,000 irregular KMT troops remained in Burma. Fighting continued sporadically from the irregular troops until coordinated military operations from 1960 to 1961 between the PRC and Burmese governments expelled the remaining irregular KMT troops from Burma. Though most were evacuated to Taiwan, some remained in Burma or formed communities in Thailand.
Before KMT invasion
broke out in Burma after the country gained independence from British colonial rule in 1948; as noted by historian Martin Smith, "the dilemmas of national unity and traditions of armed struggle date back to the colonial era, and they have found new expression in every political era since independence." After Burma fell under colonial rule as a consequence of the Anglo-Burmese Wars, Britain administered the region as a province of British India as opposed to an independent entity. While the Burman majority in Central Burma were under direct British control, ethnic minorities in the border regions were placed under indirect rule by Britain.The 1947 Burma Constitution retained the colonial federal arrangement between the central government and the peripheral states: Shan and Karenni sawbwas were granted a status similar to that of the rulers of the princely Indian states, with autonomy over administration and law enforcement. On top of that, the Shan and Karenni States also had the extraordinary right of secession after ten years in the Union. In contrast, the Kachin, Chin and Karen remained under central administration, while the Mon and Arakanese did not even have any separate political representation.
The ethnic Burman majority in the central plains were also split by political ideology. Like the Communist parties in Vietnam and Malaya, the Communist Party of Burma acquired a high degree of organizational strength and popularity from its anti-Japanese efforts. Furthermore, the People's Volunteer Organization, the former private army of the nationalist leader Aung San, split between socialist and communist sympathizers, and the latter went underground to join the Communists. This was followed by a series of mutinies in the Union Military Police and the Burmese army. With the inner circle of competent leaders murdered, and army units mutinied along ethnic and ideological lines, the civil war started within a year of independence as the ethnic insurgents as well as the Communists resorted to arms against the government.
Gradually, the Burmese Army strengthened and managed to eliminate almost all pockets of resistance. By 1950, many insurgents surrendered to the government during periods of amnesty. The success of the Burmese Army was due largely to its advantage over the rebels in arms and discipline. While the insurgents had superiority in numbers, they were unable to coordinate their activities because of their divergent goals and ideologies. Just when the Burmese government thought it had achieved some measure of political stability and could focus on the urgent task of nation building, the KMT threat arrived on its northeastern borders.
KMT offensive
When the Communist People's Liberation Army entered Yunnan Province in December 1949, the KMT troops and their dependents began crossing into Burma in late December 1949 and early January 1950. Those KMT troops were members of the Eighth Army commanded by Lieutenant-General Li Mi, the 26th Army under Major-General Liu Kuo-chuan and the 93rd Division under Major-General Mah Chaw Yu. They settled in Kengtung—one of the Shan states near the Thai-Burma border—at the village of Tachilek. General Li Mi took command of the KMT army in Burma and it grew steadily over the next few years as more stragglers made their way across the border and the army recruited from the local population. By March 1950, there were around 1,500 KMT troops occupying territory between Kengtung City and Tachilek. By April 1951 that number grew to more than 4,000 and by year-end it rose to 6,000. It would then double in 1952.In June 1950, the Burmese government demanded that the KMT either surrender or leave Burma immediately. The KMT field commander who received the Burmese request not only refused to comply but declared that the KMT troops had no intention of either surrendering or leaving the area, and would retaliate with force if the Burmese Army initiated military action. In response, the Burmese Army launched a drive from Kengtung City and captured Tachilek within weeks. Forced out of Tachilek, the KMT established a new base camp at Mong Hsat in July 1950. Mong Hsat was the second largest town in the state of Kengtung and was ideally situated for the KMT. It was centrally located in a fertile basin endowed with approximately sixty square miles of rice cultivation area, and it was surrounded by hilly terrain on all sides that acted as natural defense barriers. The town was only eighty miles from the Thailand border and hence supplies could be easily obtained from outside Burma through Thailand. The Burmese Army made several attempts over the next two years but were unsuccessful in ousting the KMT from Mong Hsat.
The main reason for KMT's intransigence was its intention to use Burma as a refuge to reorganize, train, and equip themselves for the purpose of launching an invasion to retake mainland China. Under the command of General Li Mi, an offensive was launched into Yunnan Province in May 1951 involving around 20,000 men. KMT troops moved northward and captured Kengma and its airfield some sixty miles inside China without resistance. However, as they advanced further north, the 40,000-strong People's Liberation Army counterattacked. Li Mi's army suffered huge losses and retreated back to Burma, after less than a month in China. The KMT made two more abortive attempts in July 1951 and August 1952 that took heavy casualties, after which they never invaded Yunnan again and instead "settled along the border to gather intelligence and monitor signs of a possible Communist Chinese advance into Southeast Asia."
CIA assistance and opium trade
The United States supported the KMT army, which strained the Burma-United States relationship and raised protests from the Burmese government. The United States hoped that the KMT forces would harass southwest China and divert Chinese resources from the Korean War.The KMT army in Burma could not have expanded as it did without the logistical support from the United States, Thailand and Taiwan, as well as the financial support derived from the KMT's involvement in the region's opium trade. The United States Central Intelligence Agency was the primary agency in charge of the covert program called "Operation Paper" that transported weapons and supplies to the KMT from Taiwan via Thailand. With President Truman's approval and support from Thailand's Prime Minister Plaek Phibunsongkhram, the CIA put together a secret air supply network that shipped weapons and supplies to General Li Mi's forces in Mong Hsat from Thailand. The first shipments started in early 1951, when unmarked C-46 and C-47 aircraft were making at least five parachute drops a week. By late 1951, the KMT repaired the old airstrip at Mong Hsat constructed by the Allied forces during World War II. The enlarged airstrip could handle large four-engine aircraft and allowed the KMT troops to obtain newly manufactured American weapons from Taiwan. CIA advisers also accompanied the KMT army in the Yunnan invasion in May 1951, and some of them were killed during the offensive.
When KMT guerillas retreated into Kokang, the Burmese government obtained the assistance of Olive Yang and the Kokang Kakweye to force the Kuomintang forces out of Kokang. Yang and the Kokang Kakweye succeeded in 1953, but then collaborated with the Kuomintang in trafficking opium to Thailand throughout the 1950s; the Kuomintang continued to use these opium routes for decades.
KMT entrenchment and attempted colonization
Following their failed attempt to re-enter China in August 1952, the KMT appeared to change its policy of using Burma as a base of operations for the invasion of Communist China to permanent entrenchment in the Shan area. The KMT stopped concentrating their forces near the China border in late 1952 and spread out across the Shan states as well as parts of the Kachin State. Eventually it gained control over the Shan territories between the Salween River on the west, the China border on the east, and Thailand on the south. The KMT army removed all Burmese government officials and became the only effective yet harsh government that ruled over the population of one million.The KMT-controlled territories made up Burma's major opium-producing region, and the shift in KMT policy allowed them to expand their control over the region's opium trade. Furthermore, Communist China's forced eradication of illicit opium cultivation in Yunnan by the early 1950s effectively handed the opium monopoly to the KMT army in the Shan states. Prior to the arrival of the KMT, the opium trade had already developed as a component of the local economy during the British colonial era. The main consumers of the drug were the local ethnic Chinese and those across the border in Yunnan and the rest of Southeast Asia. The KMT coerced the local villagers for recruits, food and money, and exacted a heavy tax on the opium farmers. This forced the farmers to increase their production to make ends meet. One American missionary to the Lahu tribesmen of Kengtung State even testifies to the torture the KMT committed to the Lahu for failing to comply with their regulations. The annual production increased twenty-fold from 30 tons at the time of Burmese independence to 600 tons in the mid-1950s.
The KMT troops were, in effect, the forebears of the private narcotic armies operating in the Golden Triangle. Almost all the KMT opium was sent south to Thailand. The trade between the KMT and their Thai allies worked such that weapons and military supplies were brought in to Mong Hsat on the incoming trip and KMT opium transported south to Chiang Mai on the outgoing trip. The KMT usually dealt with a powerful Thai police commander and client of the CIA, General Phao Sriyanond, who shipped the opium from Chiang Mai to Bangkok for both local consumption and export.