methods that might be used to force Chinese to donate to the party.
But, most of all, they were worried that the Chinese in Malaya would
fall under the control of the Chinese government, and so come to con-
stitute ‘a state within a state’.^2
Negotiations between the British and Chinese governments
eventually led to a lifting of the ban on the GMD. What was never
legal was membership of the predominantly Chinese Malayan Com-
munist Party (MCP). Its appeal and its activities were limited,
however, and it took the outbreak of the Sino–Japanese war in 1937 to
stimulate recruitment of more Chinese into the MCP. The war gal-
vanised the whole Chinese community in Malaya, as elsewhere in
Southeast Asia, and feelings ran high. Large sums of money were col-
lected by the China Relief Fund to assist the Chinese war effort, and
boycotts of Japanese goods were organised.
These Chinese political activities, so evidently an expression of
Chinese nationalism, may have caused little concern among the rural
Malay population, but the Malay political elite was well aware of their
implications—particularly in relation to political representation and
the vexed question of citizenship for Chinese born in China. But these
issues only became pressing in 1946, after the defeat of Japan.
In Burma, the Chinese community was much smaller than the
Indian community and attracted less suspicion and hostility than in
Malaya. Moreover, it was divided between those Chinese who had
arrived by sea and settled in Lower Burma, mainly in Rangoon, and
those who had come overland from Yunnan and were concentrated in
northern Burma and the Shan states. Among the Yunnanese, political
activity was limited, and most support for the GMD came from
Chinese in Rangoon.
With the outbreak of the Sino–Japanese war, the need for an
alternative supply route for Chinese Nationalist forces became
evident. Late in 1937, work began on the Burma Road running from
the Burmese frontier to Kunming along an ancient trade route. The
road was officially opened just over a year later, to the apprehension of
The changing world order