The movement succeeded in killing around 50–90 Japanese police and soldiers and temporarily took control of Jesselton (which after the war in 1946 would become the North Borneo and then later Sabah capital) and several neighbouring districts of Tuaran and Kota Belud.

Following the arrest and subsequent execution of the rebel alliance, the Japanese returned to administer North Borneo until 1945 when the main Allied liberation mission arrived.

[1][2] Kwok, a local Teochew Chinese from Kuching in neighbouring Sarawak, had previously been working with the China Red Cross and serving under the Kuomintang of Chiang Kai-shek,[3][4] before returning to Borneo through Malaya in 1940.

[4][7] In February 1942, Kwok wanted to establish contact with the Australians or Americans in eastern North Borneo, but he was unable to continue his trek by foot across the island jungle when he reached Pensiangan, which had a great number of Japanese troops.

Upon arrival, he first contacted the Overseas Chinese Defence Association (OCDA), with whose help he acquired medical equipment and cash donations for the support of the resistance in Sulu.

[8] With Imperial Japanese reinforcements from Kuching en route to suppress the rebellion, however, Kwok along with other members of the resistance were forced to retreat to their hide-out.

[17] After the war, the International Military Tribunal for the Far East (IMTFE) set up in 1946 to prosecute the many Japanese war crimes concluded that during the resistance movement led by the Chinese and indigenous peoples in North Borneo, the Kenpeitai had been involved in a reign of terror, arresting, torturing, and massacring hundreds of Chinese rebels while systematically exterminating the coastal population of Suluk people.