At that point Ma Bufang became governor of Qinghai, with military and civilian powers, and remained in that position until the Communist victory in 1949.

In 1932, Ma Bufang's Muslim troops, and the Han Chinese general Liu Wenhui, defeated the 13th Dalai Lama's Tibetan armies when Tibet tried to invade Qinghai province.

Chinese Muslim run schools used their victory in the war against Tibet to show how they defended the integrity of China's territory as it was put in danger since the Japanese invasion.

[29] The Kuomintang Republic of China government supported Ma Bufang when he launched seven extermination expeditions into Golog, eliminating thousands of Ngolok tribesmen.

[32][33][34] Ma Bufang established the Kunlun Middle School and used it to recruit Tibetan students, who were subjected to harsh military life.

After he and his troops were ambushed by 2,000 of Ma Bufang's Chinese Muslim cavalry, he was left with bullet wounds and he "had no illusions as to the fate of most of our group", most of whom were wiped out.

[45] Immediately after the Marco Polo Bridge Incident, he arranged for a cavalry division, under Muslim General Ma Biao, to be sent east to battle the Japanese.

[2][49] Under orders from the Kuomintang government of Chiang Kaishek, Ma Bufang repaired Yushu Batang Airport to prevent Tibetan separatists from seeking independence.

The Salar Muslim General Han Youwen directed the defense of the city of Xining during air raids by Japanese planes.

Han survived an aerial bombardment by Japanese planes in Xining while he was being directed via telephone from Ma Bufang, who hid in an air raid shelter in a military barracks.

The bombing resulted in human flesh splattering a Blue Sky with a White Sun flag and Han being buried in rubble.

The Kuomintang Chinese government ordered Ma Bufang to march his troops into Xinjiang several times to intimidate the pro-Soviet Governor Sheng Shicai.

Qinghai served as a "sanctuary" for Red Sect members; Ma Bufang allowed Kumbum Monastery to be totally self-governed by the Panchen Lama.

[64] General Ma Bufang was appointed Supreme Commander in Chief of the entire region of northwestern China by the government, described by TIME magazine as "13 times as big as Texas", containing "14 million people" "one-third Han Chinese, one-third Moslem Chinese, and the remainder Tibetans, Turkis, Mongolians, Kazaks".

[70] In October, Chiang Kai-shek urged him to return to the Northwest to resist the PLA, but he fled to Mecca with more than 200 relatives and subordinates, in the name of hajj.

[72][73] General Ma Bufang announced the start of the Kuomintang Islamic Insurgency in China (1950–1958), on January 9, 1950, when he was in Cairo, Egypt saying that Chinese Muslims would never surrender to Communism and would fight a guerilla war against the Communists.

[78] In 1957, after the establishment of diplomatic relations between Egypt and the People's Republic of China, Ma was transferred by Taipei to serve as the ROC ambassador to Saudi Arabia.

[86] Another officer who served under Ma Bufang, the Salar General Han Youwen, also defected to the Communists and joined the People's Liberation Army.

[88] Ma Bufang presented himself as a Chinese nationalist and someone who fought against Western imperialism to the people of China in order to deflect criticism by opponents that his government was feudal and oppressed minorities like Tibetans and Buddhist Mongols.

While most of China is bogged down, almost inevitably, by Civil War, Chinghai is attempting to carry out small-scale, but nevertheless ambitious, development and reconstruction schemes on its own initiative".

He made businessmen methodically clean up Xining, the capital of Qinghai, by serving as insect exterminators, killing flies, and neatly disposing of them.

[100] Ma Bufang and his wife built a school for Muslim girls in Linxia which provided a modern secular education.

[1] Ma Bufang sent the Chinese artist Zhang Daqian to Sku'bum to seek helpers to analyze and copy Dunhuang Buddhist art.

Wang composed the "War Horse Song" for the cavalry division Ma Bufang sent to fight the Japanese invaders as well as the "March of the Chinese Muslims".

[108] Since Qinghai (Amdo) was under Ma's rule, the 14th Dalai Lama and his family spoke Chinese as their native language, not knowing Tibetan until 1939 when they relocated their home to Lhasa.

From the book The Mongols at China's Edge: History and the Politics of National Unity, the author, Uradyn Erden Bulag wrote: "In the past, the Mongols and Tibetans were divided as lords and slaves, but the two Chairmen [Ma Qi and Ma Bufang], insisting on the principle of equality of all nationalities in our country, corrected the absurdity and astutely reformed it.

"[30] Near the Tibetan village of Skya Rgya in Qinghai, Muslims live around the Yellow river in the town of Dong sna 20 kilometers away and they are registered by the Chinese government as Hui.

[111] The Yihewani sect was modernist, identifying strongly with Chinese culture and politics, whereas the Salafi Muslims stressed a non-political, and, what they termed an "original" form of Islam.

[112] General Ma effectively suppressed all non-Yihewani groups, including the traditional Sunni Gedimu, the oldest sect of Islam in China, by enforcing Yihewani Imams on them.

[113] In contrast to his treatment of Salafis, General Ma allowed polytheists to worship openly, and Christian missionaries to station themselves in Qinghai.