Panthay is a term used to refer to the predominantly Muslim Hui people of China Hui can refer to: Hui people, a Chinese ethnic group. ...

Origin of the Hui

Scattered across the mountainous hill tracts which separate southwestern China from northern South-East Asia, at the furthest limits of the Silk Road and other Central Asian trade routes which carried Islam to China, the Chinese Muslims of Yunnan Province have, for centuries, excelled as long-distance traders, miners and soldiers. Chinese-speaking, and of predominantly Han Chinese ethnic origin, this little-known but economically and demographically significant group of Sunni Muslims of the Hanafi madhhab forms a predominantly endogamous, closely inter-related minority group in four countries – China, Burma, Thailand and Laos – and today represents an outpost both of Islamic and of (“Overland”) Chinese culture in northern South-East Asia. For other uses, see Silk Road (disambiguation). ... The Great Mosque of Xian, Chinas largest mosque China is home to a large population of adherents of Islam. ... Yunnan (Simplified Chinese: 云南; Traditional Chinese: 雲南; pinyin: Yúnnán) is a province of the Peoples Republic of China, located in the far southwestern corner of the country. ... Han Chinese (Simplified Chinese: 汉族; Traditional Chinese: 漢族; Pinyin: hànzú) is a term which refers to the majority ethnic group within China and the largest single human ethnic group in the world. ... Sunni Islam (Arabic سنّة) is the largest denomination of Islam. ... Hanafi (Arabic: حنفى ) is one of the four schools (madhabs) of jurisprudence (Fiqh) or religious law within Sunni Islam. ...

Commercial and cultural contacts between the Yun-Kwei Plateau and the Irrawaddy and lower Salween Valleys probably predate significant migration by Han Chinese of Burman populations into either area; certainly it is likely that by the time of the Later Han Dynasty (25-220 A.D.) itinerant traders and Buddhist pilgrims traversed this marginal region of the Sino-Indian cultural frontier on a regular if infrequent basis. By early T’ang times, Chinese control over western Yunnan was established for the first time with the submission of the population of the Erh-Hai region, near Ra-li, in 672 A.D., and the extension of the Imperial Mandate to the region of the present-day Yunnan-Burma frontier some twenty-two later, in 694. This Han Chinese dominance was to be short-lived, however; thus, within forty-five years – about 738 A.D. – the T’ai-dominated Kingdom of Nan-Chao had emerged as the dominant power of the Yunnan-Burma frontier region, a position which both it and its successor, the Kingdom of Ta-li, were to hold until the Mongol conquest of the region five centuries later. The Irrawaddy (newer spelling Ayeyarwaddy) is a river that flows through the centre of Myanmar (formerly Burma). It is Myanmars most important commercial waterway. ... The Salween River (also spelt Salwin, a. ... The Han Dynasty (Traditional Chinese: 漢朝; Simplified Chinese: 汉朝; Hanyu Pinyin: ; Wade-Giles: Han Chau; 206 BC–AD 220) followed the Qin Dynasty and preceded the Three Kingdoms in China. ...

Despite the political independence of the Nan-Chao Kingdom, Chinese cultural influence continued to penetrate and influence the Yunnan-Burma frontier region throughout the T’ang and Sung Periods. Moreover, it is possible that during the mid-T’ang period – in about 801 A.D. – surrendered Muslim soldiers, described in the Chinese Annals as Hei-I Ta-shih or “Black-Robed Muslims” (a term generally applied with reference to the Abbasids) were first settle in Yunnan. Tang Dynasty (唐朝 618-907) followed the Sui Dynasty and preceded the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms Period in China. ... Events December 28 - Louis the Vrome occupies Barcelona. ... Abbasid provinces during the caliphate of Harun al-Rashid Abbasid was the dynastic name generally given to the caliphs of Baghdad, the second of the two great Sunni dynasties of the Muslim empire. ...

Whilst this early settlement remains in some doubt, however, it is at least certain that Muslims of Central Asian origin played a major role in the Yuan (Mongol) conquest and subsequent rule of south-west China, as a result of which a distinct Muslim community was established in Yunnan by the late 13th century A.D. Foremost amongst these soldier-administrators was Sayyid Ajjal Shams al-Din Omar(Ch. Sai-tien-ch’ih shan-ssu-ting), a court official and general of Turkic origin who participated in the Mongol invasion of Szechwan and Yunnan in c. 1252, and who became Yuan Governor of the latter province in 1274-79. Shams al-Din – who is widely believed by the Muslims of Yunnan to have introduced Islam to the region – is represented as a wise and benevolent ruler, who successfully “pacified and comforted” the people of Yunnan, and who is credited with building Confucian temples, as well as mosques and schools. On his death he was succeeded by his eldest son, Nasir al-Din (Ch. Na-Su-la-ting, the “Nescradin” of Marco Polo), who governed Yunnan between 1279 and 1284. Honorary guard of Mongolia. ... Chinese 賽典赤‧詹斯丁. Yunnans first provincial govenor appointed by a Chinese imperial state. ... Sichuan (Chinese: 四川; pinyin: Sìchuān; Wade-Giles: Ssu-ch`uan; non-standard transliteration: Szechwan) is a province in central-western China with its capital at Chengdu. ... Yunnan (Simplified Chinese: 云南; Traditional Chinese: 雲南; Hanyu pinyin: ) is a province of the Peoples Republic of China, located in the far southwestern corner of the country. ... For broader historical context, see 1250s and 13th century. ...

Whilst Arab and South Asian Muslims, pioneers of the maritime expansion of Islam in the Bay of Bengal, must have visited the coasts of Arakan and the Gulf of Martaban from at least the reign of Anawrahta (1044-77 A.D.), founder of the Burmese Kingdom of Pagan, it is only from the time of Shams al-Din – and, more particularly, of his son, Nasir al-Din – that we may be sure of the advent of overland” Islam, travelling via the trade and invasion routes of Inner Asia, to the eastern frontiers of Burma. Thus – in an indication of the future specialisation of Yunnanese Muslims in the military and commercial fields – during his father’s governorship of Yunnan, Nasir al-Din was first appointed Commissioner of Roads for the province and then, in 1277-78, appointed to command the first Mongol invasion of Burma. Leading to the overthrow of the Pagan Dynasty. Subsequently, during Nasir al-Din’s Governorship, his younger brother Husayn (Ch. Hu-hsin, the third son of Sayyid al-Ajall Shams al-Din) was appointed Transport Commissioner for the province. As a result of the pre-eminence of Shams al-Din and his family during this period, a significant number of Muslim soldiers of Central Asian origin were transferred to the Ta-li region of western Yunnan – an area still largely unpopulated by Han Chinese settlers – and the descendants of these garrison troops, who participated in a number of Mongol invasions of Burmese territory during the Yuan period, from the nucleus of the present-day Chinese Muslim population both in Yunnan and Burma. The Arabs (Arabic: عرب ) are a large and heterogeneous ethnic group found throughout the Middle East and North Africa. ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ... A map showing the location of the Bay of Bengal. ... The Andaman Sea is a body of water to the southeast of the Bay of Bengal, south of Myanmar and west of Thailand; it is part of the Indian Ocean. ... Anawrahta (reigned 1044-1077), also spelled Aniruddha or Anoarahtâ or Anoa-ra-htá-soa, was a ruler of the kingdom of Bagan and the first ruler of a unified Burma. ... Temples in Pagan. ...

Development of Hui Society

Over the next five hundred years this nascent Yunnanese Muslim community established itself in a position of economic and demographic strength in southern and western Yunnan – though there are few indications of significant settlement in Burmese territory before Ch’ing times and acquired a distinctive ethnic identity through intermarriage with the local population, a process paralleled in areas of Muslim settlement elsewhere in China. Thus, following the demise of the ‘Abbasids in 1258 A.D. and the related rise of the Mongol Yuan Dynasty in China, the term Ta-shih (as applied loosely both to foreign Muslims and to those settled within China) disappeared from the Chinese Annals and was gradually replaced by a new term, Hui or Hui-hui giving rise in turn to the modern Chinese term Hui-min, the recognised contemporary designation for China’s Chinese speaking Muslim minority. The Qing Dynasty (Manchu: daicing gurun; Chinese: 清朝; Hanyu Pinyin: ; Wade-Giles: ching chao), sometimes known as the Manchu Dynasty, was a dynasty founded by the Manchu clan Aisin Gioro, in what is today northeast China, expanded into China proper and the surrounding territories of Inner Asia, establishing the...

Within Yunnan, the Hui Muslim population seems to have flourished and expanded throughout the Yuan and Ming periods (ca. 1280 – 1644). Certainly when Marco Polo visited Yunnan in the early Yuan period he noted the presence of “Saracens” amongst the population, whilst the Persian historian Rashid al-Din (died 1318 A.D.) recorded in his Jami’ ut-Tawarikh that ‘the great city of Yachi’ in Yunnan was exclusively inhabited by Muslims. Rashid al-Din may have been referring to the region around Ta-li in western Yunnan, which was to emerge as the earliest centre of Hui Muslim settlement in the province, though other areas of significant Muslim settlement were subsequently established in north-western Yunnan around Chao-t’ung by the Emperor Jen-tsung in about 1313 as well as – much later on, during the Ch’ing Era – in and around Chien-shui in south-eastern Yunnan.

Of these areas of Muslim settlement within Yunnan, it is the oldest and most westerly – that centred in and around Ta-li – which was most significant in the gradual migration of Chinese Muslims to Burma. As has already been indicated, China’s Hui population has a considerable (and well-deserved) reputation for excelling at long-distance commerce, a traditional calling well-suited to the rigours and rewards of the overland caravan trade between Yunnan and South-East Asia.

Moreover – in the case of Muslim Chinese – to the purely material drive of trade must be added the spiritual motivation (and ibadat requirement) of performing the Hajj pilgrimage; thus, as early as 1350 A.D. the Chinese traveller Wang Ta-Yuan was to record the existence of an “overland road” between Yunnan and T’ien-t’ang (Arabia) by which way the latter might be reached in a year, indeed, for prospective Yunnanese pilgrims this difficult overland route via Burma was to remain the preferred route for performing the Hajj until the establishment of regular steamship services between China and the Hijaz during the mid-19th century.

Whilst it is thus apparent that long-distance caravans traversed the Yunnan-Burma frontier on a regular basis during the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644), and that by early Ch’ing times the trade carried thereby ‘appears to have been of considerable important, significant settlement of Chinese Muslims in Burma (excluding, perhaps, the important frontier entrepots of Bhamo and Kengtung) does not seem to have commenced until the collapse of the Yunnan Muslim Rebellion in 1873, from which date the history Burma’s “Panthay”, or Yunnanese Muslim population may be said to begin.

Briefly, during the first decades of the 19th century, population pressures on the Hui Muslim and other minority peoples of Yunnan increased substantially as a result of Han Chinese migration to the province, Resentment against this development, coupled with mounting hostility towards corrupt and incompetent Ch’ing rule, led in 1855-56 to the outbreak of rebellion amongst Muslim miners in the Chien-shui region. Within two years, however, the centre of rebellion had spread to the west of the province under the leadership of Wen-hsiu. For the next fifteen years, until the Ch’ing reconquest and his own death in 1873, Ta-li remained the capital of P’ing-nan Kuo (the “Country of the peaceful South”), where Tu erected a forbidden city, wore Ming dynasty dress in repudiation of Ch’ing authority, and is reported by some sources to have adopted the Muslim name Sultan Sulayman.

Although the Yunnan Muslim Rebellion seriously disrupted the overland trade with South-East Asia, Tu Wen-hsiu – a trader himself and the descendant of a merchant family – relied as far as possible on caravan links with Burma to supply his followers with weaponry and clothing. The same mountain trials – more particularly the “Ambassadors’ Route” via Bhamo – proved useful in sending a diplomatic mission seeking support for the rebel cause to Rangoon, London and Istanbul. Finally, following the eventual collapse of P’ing-nan Kuo and the death of Tu Wen-hsiu, the caravan routes to Burma proved invaluable in providing an escape route for Muslim Chinese (whether rebels or not) who sought to escape subsequent Ch’ing reprisals. Numbers of these refugees joined the gangs of bandits who roamed the Shan state (most notably in Namkham), prompting King Mindon of Burma, in 1873-74, to proscribe them; other settled peacefully within Burma, some joining earlier Chinese Muslim settlers at Bhamo, Kengtung, Mogok and, perhaps, Amarapura and Mandalay; other founding new villages, most notably at Panglong in the trans-Salween Wa States. Yangôn, formerly Rangoon, population 4,504,000 (2001), is the capital of Myanmar. ... London is the capital city of the United Kingdom and of England and is the most populous city in the European Union. ... Satellite image of Istanbul and the Bosphorus Istanbul (Turkish: Ä°stanbul) is Turkeys largest city, and its cultural and economic center. ... The Shan (Burmese: ) are an ethnic group of Southeast Asia. ... Mindon Min (1808 1878) was King of Burma from 1853 to his death. ... Bhamo is a city in Kachin State in Myanmar, located 186 km south from the capital of Myitkyina. ... Kengtong, also spelled as Cheingtung and Kengtung is a city in Myanmar. ... Mokok is a city (population 150,000) in the Mandalay Division of Myanmar, located 200 km north of Mandalay and 148 km north-east of Shwebo. ... Amarapura (City of Immortality) is a city in the Mandalay division of Myanmar, situated 11 km to the south of Mandalay. ... Mandalay (Burmese: ) is the second largest city in Myanmar (formerly Burma) with a population of 927,000 (2005 census), agglomeration 2,5 million. ...

In so far as can be ascertained, the application of the term “Panthay” to Yunnanese Muslims (and, subsequently, to Burmese Muslims of Yunnanese origin) dates from about this time; certainly it was widely employed by British travellers and diplomats in the region from about 1875, and seems to have arisen as a corruption of the Burmese word pa-se or pa-the meaning simply “Muslim”. A considerable body of literature exists surrounding the etymology of this term, but the definitive notice (which remains, as yet, unpublished). Indicated that it was introduced by Sladen at the time of his 1868 expedition to Teng-yueh, and that it represents an anglicised and shortened version of the Burmese tarup pase, or “Chinese Muslim”. In fact, the term “Panthay” was never employed by the Yunnanese Muslims (whether of China or of Burma) who prefer simply to call themselves Hui-min or Hui-hui; nor did it, apparently, enjoy widespread usage amongst the Burmans, Shan, Karen or other Burmese peoples. Be that as it may, however – and the designation is virtually unused within Burma today- the term “Panthay” achieved widespread usage during the period of British rule, and remains the name by which Burma’s Chinese Muslim community has generally been distinguished in English language sources to the present day. Karen can refer to the Karen people of south-east Asia. ...

For a period of perhaps ten to fifteen years following the collapse of the Yunnan Muslim Rebellion, the province’s Hui minority was widely discriminated against by the victorious Ch’ing, especially in the western frontier districts contiguous with Burma. During these years the refugee Hui settled across the frontier within Burma gradually established themselves in their traditional callings – as merchants, caravaneers, miners, restaurateurs and (for those who chose or were forced to live beyond the law) as smugglers and mercenaries.

It was during this period that the Wa States settlement of Panglong came into its own as the “capital” of the up-country Panthay. Founded in about 1875, immediately following the collapse of the Yunnan Muslim Rebellion, Panglong is located in Son Mu, one of the northern trans-Salween Wa States, an area of considerable remoteness long contested between Britain and China, and populated by the fiercely independent (and sometime head-hunting) Wa Tribes. Scott visited Panglong in the 1890s, and noted both its inaccessability and defensive potential. Writing in 1900, he commented at some length on the Panthay settlement:

It stands at a height of four thousand six hundred feet above sea level, in a hollow surrounded by abrupt low hills, or rather cliffs, with a singularly jagged outline. The number of houses has been steadily increasing, but they have not been counted and estimates vary greatly. These are, however, certainly over three hundred. They are built of a kind of trellis or wattle, covered with mud and sometimes white-washed, and have thatch roofs. Each house stands with its own little fenced enclosure with a garden of peach and pear trees. These is a sort of horsepond in the village, but the water is undrinkable and the supply of good water is unsatisfactory. It is brought down in little runnels from the western hills. Many of the slopes round the village are jungle covered, but in some places they are cleared for poppy cultivation. All the roads to Pang Long pass through two small defiles, one north and the other south of the village. At both north and south entrances there the other south of the village. At both north and south entrances there are recently-built gateways constructed of sun-dried bricks, with loop holes and a thatch roof. Wattle has several meanings: In engineering terms, originally wattle referred collectively to the flexible rods, branches or twigs from various plants woven together to make fences, walls and roofs (see wattle-and-daub). ... Binomial name Prunus persica (L.) Batsch A peach dessert The Peach (Prunus persica) is a tree native to China that bears a juicy fruit of the same name. ... Species About 30 species, including: Pyrus amygdaliformis Pyrus austriaca Pyrus balansae Pyrus betulifolia Pyrus bourgaeana Pyrus bretschneideri Pyrus calleryana Pyrus caucasica Pyrus communis Pyrus cordata Pyrus cossonii Pyrus elaeagrifolia Pyrus fauriei Pyrus kawakamii Pyrus korshinskyi Pyrus lindleyi Pyrus nivalis Pyrus pashia Pyrus persica Pyrus phaeocarpa Pyrus pyraster Pyrus pyrifolia Pyrus... It has been suggested that this article or section be merged with Papaveraceae. ... See also Wikimedia Commons has multimedia related to: Bricks Masonry Brickwork Ceramics Fire brick In role-playing games, a brick is a character whose main useful skill is being able to take a great deal of damage (usually physical damage) and act as a shield for weaker allies. ...

In addition to the main settlement of Panglong, two other smaller Panthay villages, Panyao and Pachang, were established about 12 miles distant to the south and east respectively, ‘which had about eighty houses’. The dominant group in the villages were the Panthay, chiefly Hui migrants from Ta-li, Pao-shan, Shan-ning, Meng-hwa and elsewhere in southern and western Yunnan. Scott comments that these Chinese Muslims were ‘all merchants, mule-owners and men of substance’; indeed, considering this wealth Scott concluded that it was only the military prowess and superior armaments of the Panthay which kept their annual tribute to the ruler of Son Mu fixed at the low figure of 100 rupees per annum. The same source continues:

Many of the prominent traders in Pang Long have made the Haj to Mecca and Medina, and there is a mosque near the pond in the town. To supervise this they engaged a Moulvi in 1892, Fakir Syed Mahomed… Trade is the chief occupation of the settlement, and provisions of all kinds are scarce and dear. All round stretches a sort of small plateau cleared of trees except in clumps, which give it a park-like appearance, but the great scarcity of water prevents much cultivation and what there is only of dry crops. Some Chinese shoes and skull caps are turned out, but otherwise there are no manufactures. The place owns quite a thousand pack mules and could probably assemble another thousand in a short time. They have also a few pack bullocks, used locally for short trips.

By the time Scott visited Panglong – at least 15 years after the collapse of the Yunnan Muslim Rebellion – the original Panthay settlements had grown to include numbers of Shan and other hill peoples. The Panthay were, generally speaking, affluent enough to employ these more recent settlers as mule-drivers and ‘to do the drudgery generally'. In large measure this affluence must have been due the lifting of the Ch’ing proscription on Hui settlement in Yunnan (ca. 1888-90), as a result of which the Panglong “Panthays” were able to re-establish trading contacts with their fellows remaining settled within Yunnan. As a result of this development a number of the original refugees returned to China, merely maintaining agents at Panglong; certainly Scott noted that as many of the Panthay caravan traded into China as throughout the Shan States from Panglong.

Over the next thirty or so years the Panthays of Panglong continues to prosper, though by the early 1920s a feud had begun to develop between them and the Was of neighbouring Pankawn. In 1926 this erupted into the local “Wa Panthay War”, in which the latter were victorious and as a result of which Panglong threw off its vassalage to Pangkawn and reinforced its dominance over the trade routes of the region31. In addition to legitimate trading, by this time the Panthays, of Panglong were securely established as ‘the aristocrats of the opium business’ in the region now commonly designated “The Golden Triangle”, leaving the Petty and risky’ business of peddlings this highly profitable commodity locally to Shan and Han Chinese dealers, and instead running large, well-armed caravans in long-distance convoys far into Siam, Laos, Tonking and Yunnan. When Harvey visited Panglong in 1931 he found that Panthay numbers had risen to 5,000 (‘including local recruits’), that they were financed by Singapore Chinese, had 130 mauser rifles with 1,500 mules, and exported opium by the hundredweight into French, Siamese and British territory, each muleload escorted by two riflemen.

Meanwhile, despite the relative importance of Panglong and the profits to be made from the long-distance caravan, other Panthays moved further into Burma, initially as miners anxious to exploit the ruby mines of Mogok34; the Badwin silver mines of Namtu in the Northern Shan State, the jade mines of Mogaung in Kachin State. Numbers of Panthay restauranteurs and innkeepers, merchants and traders settled in the urban centres of upland Burma – chiefly at Lashio, Kengtung, Bhamo and Taunggyi – to service the needs of theses miners, passing caravaneers and the local inhabitants, whilst other settlements largely devoted to trade with the indigenous Shan and Karen populations sprang up along the Salween River. Finally, other Panthay elements moved to the major urban centres of the Burmese lowlands, most notably to Mandalay and Rangoon, where they flourished as merchants and representatives of their up – country fellows, as well as middle-men between Panglong and the other “Overland Chinese” settlements of Upper Burma and the “Overseas Chinese” community of the lowland port-cities. Bassein and Moulmein must also have attracted some Panthay settlement, the latter port being a terminus of the overland caravan trade from Yunnan in its own right, via the northern Thai trade route through Kengtung, Chiangmai and Mae Sariang. Kengtong, also spelled as Cheingtung and Kengtung is a city in Myanmar. ... Chiang Mai is both a city and a Thailand. ...

During the greater part of the period of British rule in Burma these Panthay settlers flourished, specialising in all levels of commerce from the international gem (and opium) markets to shop – and inn-keeping, mule-breeding and peddling or hawking – indeed Yunnanese peddlars (who may or may not have been Muslim) even penetrated into the unadministered and inaccessable hill tracts of “The Triangle” between Mali Hka and Nmai Hka, to the north of Myitkyina. Chiefly, however, beyond the urban centres of the Burmese lowlands, the Panthays continued their involvement in the caravan trade with Yunnan, transporting silk, opium, tea, metal goods and foodstuffs (eggs, fruit, nut and even the renowned Yunnanese hams (doubtless for consumption by their Han fellow countrymen) from China to Burma, and carrying back European manufactured goods, broadcloths, specialised foodstuffs (edible birds nests, sea slugs) and above all raw cotton, to Yunnan. GEM is an acronym for: Gas Electron Multiplier Gender Empowerment Measure Generalized Empirical Method — from Bernard Lonergan, also known as critical realism Genetically Engineered Microorganism Global Electric Motorcars Globally Executable MHP Goddard Earth Model — a model of the Earths gravity field Graphical Environment Manager — a windowing system created by... Opium is a narcotic analgesic drug which is obtained from the unripe seed pods of the opium poppy (Papaver somniferum L. or the synonym paeoniflorum). ...

Because of the essentially itinerant nature of this caravan traffic and the semi-licit or illegal nature of some aspects of the trans-frontier trade, it has always been difficult to provide accurate statistics for the distribution and numbers of “Panthay” Chinese settled in Burma, Indeed, rejection of the term “Panthay” by the Chinese Muslims, relatively easy confusion between Hui and Han Chinese by uninformed or overworked census officials, and an inherent suspicion of government beauracracy (which may seek to control movement or to levy taxes) has made accurate census-taking amongst the Panthay of Burma all but impossible. Thus, in 1931 Harvey estimated the population of Panglong (which was predominantly Panthay) at 5,000 persons. Yet official estimates put the Panthay population of Burma at 2,202 for 1911 (1,427 males and 775 females), whilst by the 1921 Census of India this had declined to 1,517 (1,076 males and 441 females), and by 1931 to 1,106 (685 males and 421 females).

A Census for 1941 was never taken, being interrupted by World War II and the Japanese invasion; indeed, it was as a result of the Japanese invasion the main Panthay settlement at Panglong was destroyed, and many Panthay fled to Yunnan, or crossed the largely unpoliced jungle frontiers into Thailand and Laos to escape Japanese persecution. The traditional dominance of Panthay/ Hui Muslim in the trade of the Burma-Yunnan frontier region was also set back by the construction of the Burma Road between Lashio and Kung-ming in 1937-38, and by the exodus of thousands of Yunnanese refugees and Kuomintang troops following the seizure of power by the Chinese Communists in 1949. As a result of these developments, which brought a flood of predominantly Han, and not Hui, “Overland Chinese” to the Burmese Shan States, many Panthay seem to have chosen to migrate to northern Thailand, where their communities continue to flourish. Combatants Allies: Poland, British Commonwealth, France/Free France, Soviet Union, United States, China, and others Axis Powers: Germany, Italy, Japan, and others Casualties Military dead: 17 million Civilian dead: 33 million Total dead: 50 million Military dead: 8 million Civilian dead: 4 million Total dead: 12 million World War II... The Chinese Nationalist Party (Traditional Chinese: 中國國民黨; Simplified Chinese: 中国国民党; Hanyu Pinyin: ; Wade-Giles: Chung-kuo Kuo-min-tang; Tongyong Pinyin: Jhōngguó GuómíndÇŽng), commonly known as the Kuomintang (KMT), is a conservative political party currently active in the Republic of China (ROC) on Taiwan. ...

No comprehensive census of the remaining Panthay population within Burma has been taken since 1931, and restrictions on travel for foreigners, combined with the inherent weakness of central government control over those outlying areas of the Shan and Kachin Hills where many Panthays live, makes any attempt to calculate Burma’s present (1986) Panthay population almost impossible (though an exaggerated estimate of 100,000 Panthays resident within Burma appeared in the Burmese daily Hanthawaddi in 1960. Certainly readily identifiable Panthay communities continue to exist in several areas which are open to foreign travel (Rangoon, Mandalay, Taunggyi), as well as, by report, in Kengtung, Bhamo, Mogok, Lashio and (particularly) at Tanyan, near Lashio. Wherever they have settled in sufficient numbers, the Panthays have established their own mosques and madrasas (for example the Panthay Balee at Mandalay Short Lane, Rangoon, at Mandalay and in Myitkyina). Some of these mosques are in “pseudo-Moghul” style, clearly having been influenced by Indian Muslim tastes and styles, whilst others (notably at Mandalay) have Chinese architectural features. As with the Hui in China, the Burmese Panthay are exclusively Sunni Hanafi; Few are conversant with more than the most elementary phrases of Arabic, and quite often when a Panthay imam is not available to care for the spiritual welfare of a community., a South Asian or Zerbadi (Burman) Muslim is engaged instead.