1999/03/01 by Karl Hack · 4 citations
Social Sciences · #Military History and Strategy #Asian Studies and History #Commonwealth, Australian Politics and Federalism #Historiography #Stalemate #Communism #History #Population #Ancient history #China #Genealogy #Political science #Law #Demography #Politics #Sociology #Archaeology
paper · doi:10.1017/s0022463400008043
openalex publication_date 1999/03/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/02
This article addresses the historiography of the Malayan Emergency (1948–60). It does so by challenging two archetypal works on the conflict: those of Anthony Short and Richard Stubbs. These argue the Emergency was locked in stalemate as late as 1951. By then, a “population control” approach had been implemented — the so-called Briggs Plan for resettling 500,000 Chinese squatters. The predominantly Chinese nature of the Malayan National Liberation Army (MNLA) had also ensured that most Malays — who constituted nearly half the 1950 population of five million — opposed the revolt. The several thousand strong Communist-led guerrillas thus laboured under severe limitations.