Malayan Emergency in the context of Chin Peng

A state of emergency is a situation in which a government is empowered to put through policies that it would normally not be permitted to do, for the safety and protection of its citizens. A government can declare such a state before, during, or after a natural disaster, civil unrest, armed conflict, medical pandemic or epidemic or other biosecurity risk.

The Malayan Communist Party (MCP), officially the Communist Party of Malaya (CPM), was a Marxist–Leninist and anti-imperialist communist party which was active in British Malaya and later, the modern states of Malaysia and Singapore from 1930 to 1989. It was responsible for the creation of both the Malayan Peoples' Anti-Japanese Army and the Malayan National Liberation Army.

The party led resistance efforts against the Japanese occupation of Malaya and Singapore during World War II, and later fought a war of national liberation against the British Empire during the Malayan Emergency. After the departure of British colonial forces from the Federation of Malaya, the party fought in a third guerrilla campaign against both the Malaysian and Singaporean governments in an attempt to create a communist state in the region, before disbanding in 1989. Today, due to historical connotations surrounding the MCP, communism as an ideology remains a taboo political topic in both countries.

Winning hearts and minds is a concept occasionally expressed in the resolution of war, insurgency, and other conflicts, in which one side seeks to prevail not by the use of superior force, but by making emotional or intellectual appeals to sway supporters of the other side.

The use of the term "hearts and minds" to reference a method of bringing a subjugated population on side, was first used by French general and colonial administrator Hubert Lyautey as part of his strategy to counter the Black Flags rebellion during the Tonkin campaign in 1895. The term has also been attributed to Gerald Templer's strategy during the Malayan Emergency.

Counterinsurgency (COIN, or NATO spelling counter-insurgency) is "the totality of actions aimed at defeating irregular forces". The Oxford English Dictionary defines counterinsurgency as any "military or political action taken against the activities of guerrillas or revolutionaries" and can be considered war by a state against a non-state adversary. Insurgency and counterinsurgency campaigns have been waged since ancient history. Western thought on fighting 'small wars' gained interest during initial periods of European colonisation, while modern thinking on counterinsurgency was developed during decolonization.

During insurgency and counterinsurgency, the distinction between civilians and combatants is often blurred. Counterinsurgency may involve attempting to win the hearts and minds of populations supporting the insurgency. Alternatively, it may be waged in an attempt to intimidate or eliminate civilian populations suspected of loyalty to the insurgency through indiscriminate violence.

Agent Orange is a chemical herbicide and defoliant, one of the tactical uses of Rainbow Herbicides. It was used by the U.S. military as part of its herbicidal warfare program, Operation Ranch Hand, during the Vietnam War from 1962 to 1971. The U.S. was strongly influenced by the British who used Agent Orange during the Malayan Emergency. It is a mixture of equal parts of two herbicides, 2,4,5-T and 2,4-D.

Agent Orange was produced in the United States beginning in the late 1940s and was used in industrial agriculture, and was also sprayed along railroads and power lines to control undergrowth in forests. During the Vietnam War, the U.S. military procured over 20,000,000 U.S. gal (76,000,000 L; 17,000,000 imp gal), consisting of a fifty-fifty mixture of 2,4-D and dioxin-contaminated 2,4,5-T. Nine chemical companies produced it: Dow Chemical Company, Monsanto Company, Diamond Shamrock Corporation, Hercules Inc., Thompson Hayward Chemical Co., United States Rubber Company (Uniroyal), Thompson Chemical Co., Hoffman-Taff Chemicals, Inc., and Agriselect.

The Morning Star is a left-wing British daily newspaper with a focus on social, political and trade union issues. Originally founded in 1930 as the Daily Worker by the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB), ownership was transferred from the CPGB to an independent readers' co-operative, the People's Press Printing Society, in 1945 and later renamed the Morning Star in 1966. The paper describes its editorial stance as in line with Britain's Road to Socialism, the programme of the Communist Party of Britain.

The Daily Worker initially opposed the Second World War and its London edition was banned in Britain between 1941 and 1942. After the Soviet Union joined the Allies, the paper enthusiastically backed the war effort. During the Cold War, the paper provided a platform for critics of the US and its allies. This included whistleblowers who provided evidence that the British military were allowing their forces to collect severed heads during the Malayan Emergency, and exposing the mass graves of civilians killed by the South Korean government.

In security studies and international relations, a police action is a military action undertaken without a formal declaration of war. In the 21st century, the term has been largely supplanted by "counter-insurgency". Since World War II, formal declarations of war have been rare, especially military actions conducted by the Global North during the Cold War. Rather, nations involved in military conflict (especially the great powers) sometimes describe the conflict by fighting the war under the auspices of a "police action" to show that it is a limited military operation, different from total war.

The earliest use of the phrase dates back to 1883, describing attempts by Dutch and British forces to liberate the 28-man crew of the SS Nisero, who were held hostage in Sumatra. The Dutch term politionele acties (police actions) was used for this. The Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary: Eleventh Edition called it in its 1933 issue; a localized military action undertaken without formal declaration of war by regular armed forces against persons (as guerrillas or aggressors) held to be violators of international peace and order. It was also used to imply a formal claim of sovereignty by colonial powers, such as in the military actions of the Netherlands, United Kingdom, and Western powers during conflicts such as the Indonesian National Revolution and the Malayan Emergency.

Tunku Abdul Rahman (Jawi: تونكو عبد الرحمن; 8 February 1903 – 6 December 1990), widely known simply as Tunku, was a Malaysian statesman who served as the first prime minister of Malaysia from 1957 until 1970. He was also the only chief minister of the Federation of Malaya from 1955 to 1957, president of UMNO from 1951 to 1971, and leader of the Alliance Party from 1952 to 1971. As the leading advocate for self-governance, Tunku was central to the Malayan Declaration of Independence and the creation of Malaysia in 1963. He is widely recognised as the country's founding father and remains its second longest-serving prime minister.

A prince of the Kedah Sultanate, Tunku studied in Malaya and later graduated from St Catharine's College, Cambridge. Upon returning, he joined the colonial civil service, serving as district officer before becoming a public prosecutor in 1949. He entered politics by winning the UMNO leadership election in 1951 and formed the Alliance Party with the Malaysian Chinese Association and Malaysian Indian Congress the following year. Alliance won a landslide victory in the 1955 general election, after which Tunku became chief minister. He unsuccessfully attempted to negotiate an end to the Malayan Emergency through the Baling Talks, but successfully secured independence for Malaya through the Treaty of London in 1956. He proclaimed independence in 1957 and won a fresh mandate in the 1959 general election, before overseeing the formation of Malaysia in 1963, which included Singapore, Sabah and Sarawak. He led the Alliance to another victory in 1964 but was increasingly troubled by ethnic tensions, particularly due to the worsening relationship with Singapore.

The communist insurgency in Sarawak was an insurgency in Malaysia from 1962 to 1990, and involved the North Kalimantan Communist Party (NKCP) and the Malaysian Government. It was one of the two communist insurgencies to challenge the former British colony of Malaysia during the Cold War. As with the earlier Malayan Emergency (1948–1960), the communist insurgents in Sarawak were predominantly ethnic Chinese, who opposed British rule over Sarawak and later opposed the merger of the state into the newly created Federation of Malaysia. The insurgency was triggered by the 1962 Brunei revolt, which had been instigated by the left-wing Brunei People's Party in opposition to the proposed formation of Malaysia.

The communist insurgents in Sarawak were also supported by Indonesia until 1965, when the pro-Western president Suharto assumed power in a coup and ended the confrontation with Malaysia. During that period, the NKCP's two main military formations were created: the Sarawak People's Guerrilla Force (SPGF) or Pasukan Gerilya Rakyat Sarawak (PGRS), and the North Kalimantan People's Army (NKPA) or the Pasukan Rakyat Kalimantan Utara (PARAKU). Following the end of the confrontation, Indonesian military forces would co-operate with the Malaysians in counter-insurgency operations against their former allies.

The Malayan Peoples' Anti-Japanese Army (MPAJA) was a communist guerrilla army that resisted the Japanese occupation of Malaya from 1941 to 1945 in World War II. Composed mainly of ethnic Chinese guerrilla fighters, the MPAJA was the largest anti-Japanese resistance group in Malaya. Founded during the Japanese invasion of Malaya, the MPAJA was conceived as a part of a combined effort by the Malayan Communist Party (MCP) and the British colonial government, alongside various smaller groups to resist the Japanese occupation. Although the MPAJA and the MCP were officially different organisations, many saw the MPAJA as a de facto armed wing of the MCP due to its leadership being staffed by mostly ethnic Chinese communists. Many of the ex-guerrillas of the MPAJA would later form the Malayan National Liberation Army (MNLA) and resist a return to pre-war the normality of British rule of Malaya during the Malayan Emergency (1948–1960).

The Malayan National Liberation Army (MNLA) was a Communist guerrilla army that fought for Malayan independence from the British Empire during the Malayan Emergency (1948–1960) and later fought against the Malaysian government in the Communist insurgency in Malaysia (1968–1989). Many MNLA fighters were former members of the Malayan Peoples' Anti-Japanese Army (MPAJA), including its leader Chin Peng.

The group was also referred to as the Malayan Races Liberation Army owing to a mistranslation.

Clement Attlee was invited by King George VI to form the first Attlee ministry in the United Kingdom on 26 July 1945, succeeding Winston Churchill as prime minister of the United Kingdom. The Labour Party had won a landslide victory at the 1945 general election, and went on to enact policies of what became known as the post-war consensus, including the establishment of the welfare state and the nationalisation of 20 per cent of the entire economy. The government's spell in office was marked by post-war austerity measures; the crushing of pro-independence and communist movements in Malaya; the grant of independence to India, Pakistan, Ceylon, and Burma; the engagement in the Cold War against Soviet Communism; and the creation of the country's National Health Service (NHS).

Attlee went on to win a narrow majority at the 1950 general election, forming the second Attlee ministry. Just twenty months after that election, Attlee called a new election for 25 October 1951, but was narrowly defeated by the Conservative Party, sending Labour into a 13-year spell in opposition.

Seek and destroy (also known as search and destroy, or S&D) is a military strategy which consists of inserting infantry forces into hostile territory and directing them to search and then attack enemy targets before immediately withdrawing. First used as part of counterinsurgency operations during military conflicts in Southeast Asia such as the Malayan Emergency and the Vietnam War, the strategy was developed to take advantage of new technological capabilities available to Western militaries such as the helicopter, which allowed for the adoption of new tactics like the air assault.

Primarily used in jungle warfare, the strategy was developed with asymmetric tactics in mind rather than conventional warfare. A related strategy known as clear and hold, which entailed military forces clearing an area of enemy personnel and then keeping the area clear of enemies while winning the local population's support, was developed around the same period and used alongside the search and destroy strategy. Body counts were commonly used to determine the success of the strategy, which entailed fighting a war of attrition against an insurgency.

Field Marshal Sir Gerald Walter Robert Templer (11 September 1898 – 25 October 1979) was a senior British Army officer. He fought in both the world wars and was involved in the British response to the 1936–1939 Arab revolt in Palestine. As Chief of the Imperial General Staff, the professional head of the British Army between 1955 and 1958, Templer was Prime Minister Anthony Eden's chief military adviser during the Suez Crisis. He is also credited as a founder of the United Kingdom's National Army Museum.

Templer is best known for implementing strategies that heavily contributed to the defeat of the Malayan National Liberation Army (MNLA) during the Malayan Emergency. Some historians have described his methods as a successful example of a "hearts and minds" campaign, while other scholars have dismissed this as a myth due to his over-reliance on population control and coercion. Templer also oversaw, ordered, and personally approved of many controversial policies and numerous atrocities committed by his troops. These including the use of internment camps called "New Villages", the forced relocation of ethnic minorities, forced conscription, collective punishment against civilians, the hiring of specialist Iban-headhunters to decapitate suspected communists, pioneering the use of Agent Orange (later used in Vietnam), and the use of scorched earth policies deprive the MNLA of resources.