380 { China’s Quest
As for the Communist Party of Malaya (CPM), in December 1980 Deng
Xiaoping summoned its secretary general, Chin Peng, to a meeting at the
Great Hall of the People. The previous month, Singapore leader Lee Kuan Yew
had visited Beijing after consulting with the leaders of Malaysia, Thailand,
and Indonesia to convey Southeast Asian views about China’s dual-track ap-
proach. After a few pleasantries, Deng got to the point with Chin Peng: “I
have brought you here in order to talk to you about your radio station. We
would like you to close it down.”^55 The reader will recall that the CPM had
been operating a radio station, “Voice of the Malay Revolution,” from Hunan
province since 1969. Now, Deng said, Lee Kuan Yew had stated that unless
that radio ceased operation it would be difficult for ASEAN countries to sup-
port the Khmer Rouge claim to Cambodia’s UN seat. When Chin asked “how
soon,” Deng, his face looking “particularly severe” according to Chin Peng,
replied “the sooner the better.” Deng gave the CPM until the end of June 1981
to close the radio station. That would be shortly before that year’s UN General
Assembly debate on Cambodia.
Deng did not leave the CPM entirely without support. Before the deadline
for shutting down the VOMR, the CPM acquired, with the assistance of the
CCP’s International Liaison Department, a smaller, mobile radio transmitter
that could broadcast from the southern Thailand base area of the CPM. Thus
the day after the CPM’s Hunan radio shut down, the new, smaller transmitter
in southern Thailand began broadcasting. A few days later, US diplomats in
Beijing protested the continuing broadcasts, according to Chin Peng. The PRC
reply was that if the US side investigated the situation they would find that the
broadcast did not come from China.^56 The switch of the CPM radio station
from Hunan to southern Thailand did not satisfy Malaysia’s leaders. When
Zhao Ziyang visited Kuala Lumpur in August 1981, Prime Minister Mahathir
Mohammed said that the opening of the new radio station put the whole issue
“back to square one.” Malaysia’s foreign minister told Zhao that Malaysia
was “not fully satisfied” with China’s stance on the CPM insurgency. It took
several years, but in response to Southeast Asian demands, China gradually
dropped support for Southeast Asian revolutions. The CCP ILD still main-
tained contact with several of those parties, but without Chinese political and
material support, the movements withered. These tiny, demanding, and trou-
blesome parties were of little use to a Chinese government seeking expanded
economic cooperation with the Southeast Asian countries and the support of
those same countries in the effort to compel Hanoi to relinquish its control
of Cambodia.
Burma, significantly a state not involved in the Kampuchea imbroglio, was
the first state to witness CCP disengagement from foreign insurgencies. Deng
Xiaoping visited Burma twice in 1978, in January and again in November, for
talks with President U Ne Win. As a result of these talks, China recalled the
Red Guard “volunteers” who had been serving with the Communist Party of