The Malayan Communists
The outlook for the Communists in Malaya is not yet desperate, but it cannot be called promising. In their main object, which was to seize control of the whole Peninsula, they have failed decisively. They have scored, and will continue to score, minor successes in the operational field ; the murder on Wednesday of Dr. Ong Chong- keng, a member of the federal executive and legislative councils, removes one of the strongest and most influential anti-Communist leaders. Politically they cannot be reckoned to have done well. They have won over no section of the local population, whose support, where it is essential to them, they must exact at the point of a pistol, and they have wholly failed to disguise thuggery organised for political ends as any sort of a popular or nationalist movement. The crocodile tears shed on their behalf by Communists in Moscow, London and elsewhere only make Communism look silly without materially assisting its champions in Malaya. They have inflicted some damage on the Malayan economy, but the fact that rubber exports have only just begun to show a drop suggests that the damage is less serious than might have been expected. They have, finally, induced the British Government to array against them forces which should soon be commensurate with the awkward but not impossible task of subduing them. As a congeries of guerrilla forces they can reasonably hope to remain in being for some time to come, and their political doctrines cannot be stamped out by any number of preventive campaigns. But their movement, as such, has failed, and it may not be long before they can be classed as a nuisance rather than a menace. Stricter control of the Siamese frontier—the Siamese are reported to have agreed to the opening of a British Consulate at Singora—may prove to be an important contributory factor to their final defeat ; some odd things seem to have been going on among the Chinese community in Siam.
