Image 2The
Kuomintang in Burma or
Kuomintang in the Golden Triangle were
Kuomintang (Chinese Nationalist) troops that fled from China to Burma in 1950 after their defeat by the
Chinese communists in the
Chinese Civil War. They were commanded by General
Li Mi. It attempted several incursions into
Yunnan in the early 1950s, only to be pushed back into Burma each time by the
Chinese Communist Party's
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 (Burma, the United States, the Republic of China, and Thailand) to negotiate the KMT withdrawal. On 30 May 1954, General Li Mi announced the dissolution of the Yunnan Province Anticommunist National Salvation 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. (
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