The Malayan Emergency: Blueprint for a Successful Counterinsurgency Campaign?

In 1942, British forces in Malaya had to capitulate to the Imperial Japanese Army, which had rapidly conquered the Malayan peninsula. After the Japanese defeat in 1945, the British returned and tried to reinstall the prewar colonial regime. Malaya was strategically and economically important for the British empire due to its rubber and tin exports. It was also important to the British for its role in protecting the crown colony of Singapore, one of the most important ports and commercial centers in the world at the time. When communist guerrillas attacked rubber plantations in June 1948, brutally killing a number of planters, the colonial government declared a state of emergency over the entire area of Malaya (today known as Malaysia).

To suppress the insurgency, the first reaction of the colonial government was to pursue a military-centric strategy that included search and destroy missions as well as other harsh measures aimed to violently stamp out any support for the insurgents within the general population. At that point, British forces in Malaya numbered 12,000 British soldiers and 30,000 British and Malayan policemen as well as 15,000 in the local militia or home guard. Opposed to the British were a force of 6,000 to 8,000 communist guerrillas under the leadership of Chin Peng, who tried to apply Mao Zedong’s doctrine of guerrilla warfare. 

The powers of the government under the state of emergency included the rights to raise a special constable force, to control movement of the roads, to arrest people without a warrant, to order detention, and to register the entire population, as well as the right to try all but capital offenses in private. The implementation of these measures and rights were handed over to the military and police forces. 

People who aided or were suspected of aiding guerrillas were just as liable to arrest by security forces as those who actually were guerrillas and involved in guerrilla activities. The death of High Commissioner Sir Edward Gent one week after the emergency was declared shifted even more power into the hands of the military under the command of Major-General C.H. Boucher, who referred to the guerrillas as “bandits.”

Boucher’s tactics, however, were inept, as he tried to attack the enemy in large battalion “sweeps” with the purpose of locating and trapping guerrillas. These methods were too slow and time-consuming to be of any value in battling a fast-moving and lightly armed enemy. The army suffered from many casualties due to ambushes and the civilian population could not be protected from attacks either. The police lacked sufficient manpower and equipment; they also lacked men who were able to speak Malay and Chinese or had general knowledge of the country. Thus, like U.S. forces in Vietnam, French forces in Algeria, and Dutch forces in Indonesia, the British forces started to treat every Malay and (primarily) Chinese as a bandit and guerrilla fighter who could be beaten and “bashed around,” according to a journalist writing for the Strait Times.

Areas in which insurgents operated or where ambushes and attacks occurred were subject to collective punishment. In August 1948, the entire village of Pulai in Kelantan was burned to the ground after it had been briefly occupied by the guerrillas.  On November 2, 1948 the village of Kachau was almost completely destroyed by government forces, with 61 houses destroyed and 400 people left homeless.

The army further had a tendency to shoot people who were “acting suspiciously” rather than arresting them. At the beginning of the Emergency, the army and government pursued the policy of detention and banishment. After a year more than 15,000 people had been deported to China or were detained in camps in Malaya. The newly appointed High Commissioner of Malaya Sir Henry Gurney appeared unconcerned that the British army and police were breaking the law on a daily basis. The harsh government measures sent people flocking to the cause of the guerrillas. In general terms, the fighting from 1948 to 1951 proved to be indecisive, but the majority of the population, particularly the local Chinese, supported the guerrilla movement. The initial strategy of the government was to reinforce law and order through coercion and harsh enforcement. It didn’t work.

Gurney was assassinated in an ambush in October 1951, right after he had ordered the so called “Briggs Plan” to be put into action. According to this plan more than 600,000 Chinese squatters were to be resettled in so called “New Villages” in order to reduce the supply bases of the communist guerrillas.

A Change in Approach

His replacement, High Commissioner Sir Gerald Templer, carefully reviewed the Malayan Counter Guerrilla policy and came to the conclusion that it was ineffective, commenting that “the shooting side of the business is only 25 percent  of the trouble and the other 75 percent lies in getting the people of this country behind us.”

As a first action, Templer reasserted civilian control of the military. Second, he proposed clear-cut political objectives: Malaya would be given independence after the guerrillas were defeated, not sooner, and a working government – the Malaysian Federation – respectful of all ethnicities living in the colony would be installed. Third, Templer directed the government to more actively seek out the support of the different Malayan communities, since they were fighting for their own independence. Fourth, he continued with the resettlement policy of the Chinese squatters in the most humane manner. Together with Oliver Lyttelton, the new secretary of state for colonies, Templer developed and implemented what came to be known as the “hearts and minds approach” in dealing with the guerrilla threat. 

In detail, this involved the development of the New Villages, including schools, clean water, community centers, basic medical care, some agricultural land, and other services. Elections were introduced in villages and later taken up to the federal level in order to shift more responsibility to the people and to convince them of the British will to grant them independence. Civilians were given better protection by additionally training home guard units and police units specifically for defending villages. Food production was strictly controlled and only distributed through the government, which left the guerrillas short of supplies. Severe penalties were imposed on anybody who collaborated with the guerrillas, but not without the due process of law. In areas which were considered to be free of guerrilla activity, known as white areas, most of the strict emergency regulations were lifted and people could enjoy a normal existence. In addition, a propaganda offensive was launched, which included dropping leaflets, touring the country with film units, and distributing news sheets.

All these measures taken together guaranteed that more information was given to the government about guerrilla whereabouts by the people, which enabled small jungle patrols of police and army to beat the guerrillas on their “own grounds.” The measures introduced by Templer were expensive and meant a substantial increase in the Malayan budget. Luckily for the Malayan government, the onset of the Korean War generated higher demand for the colony’s two main exports, tin and rubber, which produced an economic boom in 1952.

In applying a “hearts and minds" approach and with strong financial resources at his disposal, Templer was able to address Malaya’s social, economic, political, and military issues by resettling the Chinese squatters population and creating the Malaysian Federation; giving the Chinese, Malayans and Indians a livelihood in the new villages and white areas combined with land reforms; granting Malaya future independence; and battling the guerrillas more successfully, largely due to civilian support for the British and Malayan armed services.

With Templer in charge, guerrilla-related incidents steadily declined. The guerrillas began to lose public support and the British and Malayan army expanded and moved from the defensive onto the offensive, taking the fight to the jungles. Templer’s successor, Sir Donald Gillivray, continued his policies and in 1957 Malaya was officially granted independence. Three years later the Emergency ended. Templer’s “hearts and minds” approach dovetailed with the financial windfalls sparked by the industrial demands of the Korean War and saved the country from a stalemate. The war lasted from 1948 to 1960, but two-thirds of the casualties occurred during the first two years, when the British pursued a military-centric strategy that resulted in indiscriminate violence, wanton arrests, and collective punishments of entire communities. Templer’s way may have been expensive, but it ultimately succeeded.