Bai Chongxi

Republic of China state institutions Nationalism 1893–1966 ○ Natural causes

Hui general who ruled Guangxi with Li Zongren, led the 1927 Shanghai purge and was the first defence minister

Born to a Hui Muslim family in Guilin, Guangxi, he graduated from the Baoding Military Academy. With Li Zongren and Huang Shaohong he formed the New Guangxi Clique, which ruled Guangxi from the mid-1920s to 1949. He commanded the Kuomintang forces in the Shanghai massacre of 1927, directing the purge of Communists, and defeated the Fengtian clique in the Northern Expedition. He opposed Chiang in the Central Plains War of 1930 but backed him against Japan and in the civil war, and was the Republic’s first defence minister from 1946 to 1948. Commanding in central China in 1949, he lost his main force to the Fourth Field Army, fled to Taiwan and died there in 1966.

Also known as: Pai Chung-hsi · Omar Bai Chongxi