The Malayan Emergency

Abstract

In June 1948 a state of emergency was proclaimed in Malaya in response to Communist guerrilla activity. Problems had been developing for a considerable time. The British had imported Chinese and Indian labour to work in the tin mines and rubber plantations. They became a majority of the population — a fact deeply resented by Malays. The Chinese had suffered high unemployment in the 1930s, and had then been victimised by the Japanese after their conquest of Malaya. The Malayan Communist Party was in fact overwhelmingly (95 per cent) Chinese. They were determined to fight a restoration of British imperial power. The Communists’ main support was in the countryside. Barely scraping a living on the fringes of the jungle were perhaps 600,000 Chinese squatters. Their poverty and insecurity made them an ideal recruiting ground for guerrillas. Their strategy was simple — and potentially war-winning. They would paralyse the economy, by attacking rubber plantations and tin mines. The British would eventually cut their losses and leave.