214 { China’s Quest
In September 1951, the CCP requested that the CPM post a very senior rep-
resentative in Beijing. The CPM agreed, and sent Siao Chang, who reached the
Chinese capital in early 1953. The CCP did not allow CPM cadres studying in
China to return to Malaya while the Korean War was still underway, because
it feared that discovery of links between the CCP and Asian revolutionary
movements might disrupt the armistice talks underway at Panmunjom.^38
Travel and communications between CPM leaders in Malaya and CCP lead-
ers in China was not easy. Initial efforts at radio communications failed.
So too did a courier system, when a female agent compromised herself by
involvement in open propaganda work. Travel overland to China required
“many weeks,” with considerable danger of arrest.^39 Eventually, a secure and
stable system of radio communication was worked out that allowed the CPM
to keep the CCP informed.^40
Major shifts in the CPM line originated from the CPM’s office in Beijing
in close consultation with CCP leaders. In 1954, the two top CPM representa-
tives in Beijing undertook an evaluation of CPM strategy and “its relationship
to the overall world communist picture.” This was during China’s Bandung
period. In consequence, the Beijing office of the CPM ordered the CPM
Center in Malaya (then at Betong, just inside Malaya on the Thai border on
the Kra Isthmus) to drop its earlier “emphasis on the leading role to be played
by the [Malaya] Communist Party” and adopt a policy of a broad united front
for national independence. According to Chin Peng, this “significant direc-
tional shift” amounted to a new strategy of seeking national independence by
“means other than armed struggle.”^41 (Emphasis added.) In his memoir, Chin
Peng complained that the top CPM leaders based in Malaya “had had [no]
say whatsoever in the fundamental strategic redirection. Still we found our-
selves faced with the urgent requirement of devising how best to implement
the Party’s new approach.”^42 In line with the directive from Beijing, according
to Chin Peng, CPM leaders in Malaya:
“[I] immersed [themselves] in an extensive review of the new political
position that had been imposed on us. It was very clear that neither
Moscow nor Peking saw value in an armed struggle dragging on in
Malaya ... This was by far the toughest of the tough realities we had had
to confront since the onset of the Emergency.”^43
Peace talks between the CPM and the Malayan government began in 1955.
When those talks stalled, Beijing upped the pressure on the CPM to settle.
Late in 1955, a special emissary from the CCP arrived at Betong to deliver a
joint written opinion of the CPSU and the CCP. Prospects for success of the
CPM’s armed struggle were not good, according to the CPSU-CCP message.
Topping the list of reasons for this was the absence of a common frontier with
a socialist state. Later, this joint opinion was revoked due to CCP criticism.^44
By late 1958, most CPM fighters had surrendered and accepted government