Chin Peng

All you want to know about Chin Peng

This is a Chinese name; the family name is Chen.

Chin Peng (Traditional Chinese: 陳平, Simplified Chinese: 陈平, Mandarin Chén Píng) (born 1924), was born Ong Boon Hua (Mandarin: Wang Yonghua or Wang Wenhua Chinese: 王文華) in Sitiawan, and was a long-time leader of the Malayan Communist Party (MCP).

Contents

Biography

Early years

Chin Peng was born in late October, 1924, into a middle class Hokchia (hanyu pinyin: Fuqing) family in the small seaside town of Sitiawan, in Perak state, Malaya. His father had come to the town in 1920 and started a bicycle, tyre, and spare motor parts business with the help of a relative from Singapore. [1] He attended a Chinese-language school in Sitiawan. In 1937 he joined the Chinese Anti Enemy Backing Up Society (AEBUS), formed that year to send aid to China in response to Japan's aggression against that country. According to Chin and Hack, he was not yet at that time a devoted communist. [2] He was in charge of anti-Japanese activities at his school. Initially a supporter of Sun Yat-sen, by early 1939 he had embraced communism. He planned to go to Yan'an, the renowned Communist base in China, but was persuaded to remain in Malaya and take on heavier responsibilities for the Party there.

In late 1939, by which time Chin had completed his study up to Senior Middle One, his school announced that the Senior Middle section was to be closed due to lack of money. He chose to continue his education in the Methodist-run Anglo-Chinese Continuation School, which operated in English, because it provided a good cover for his underground activities and because it was local so he would not have to move to Singapore for schooling. However after six months he left the school "for fear of British harassment". [3] Once out of school, he concentrated on his political activities, and became, from that point on, a full time revolutionary. In January 1940 he had been put in charge of three anti-Japanese organisations that had a scope beyond the schools; they were for students, teachers, other cultural members, and shop assistants. At the end of January, 1940, he was admitted to the Malayan Communist Party as a candidate member. [4]

Harassment by the authorities led him to leave his home town for Kuala Kangsar in July 1940. (This may be the same movement as his leaving school, referred to above.) Later he spent a month in Taiping. In September 1940 the party posted him to Ipoh as Standing Committee Member for Perak. In December he attained full Party membership.

In early 1941 AEBUS was dissolved. Chin Peng became Ipoh District Committee Member of the Party. "He led student underground cells of three Chinese secondary schools and the Party's organisations of the shop assistants, domestic servants of European families, workers at brick kilns and barbers." [5] In June 1941 he became a member of the Perak State Committee.

Rise to prominence

Chin Peng rose to prominence during World War II when many Chinese Malayans took to the jungle to fight a guerrilla war against the Japanese. These fighters, inspired by the example of the Communist Party of China, became known as the Malayan People's Anti-Japanese Army (MPAJA). Chin Peng became the liaison officer between the MPAJA and the British military in South-East Asia.

The Japanese invasion of Malaya began in December 1941. In 1942 Chin was the junior of three members of the Secretariat of the Perak State Committee: Su Yew Meng was secretary, and Chang Meng Ching (hanyan pinyin: Zhang Ming Jin) was the other member. In early 1943 the two senior members were captured by the Japanese, which left Chin Peng in charge. Contact with the Party's Central Committee had been lost; he attempted to re-establish it, travelling to Kuala Lumpur and meeting Chai Ker Meng. Later Lai Tek, the Party leader, sent another Central Committee member, Lee Siow Peng (Siao Ping), to replace Chin as State Secretary. However, Lee Siow Peng was captured not long after, while travelling to a meeting that was to be held in Singapore. It was thus that the job of establishing contact with the British commando Force 136 fell to Chin Peng. The first party of that force, consisting of Capt. John Davis and five Chinese agents, had been landed in Malaya on 24 May 1943, by submarine. Chin Peng made contact with this armed group on 30 September 1943. He was active in his support for the British stay-behind troops, but had no illusions about their failure to protect Malaya against the Japanese. In the course of this activity, he came into contact with Freddie Spencer Chapman, who called him a 'true friend' in his Malayan jungle memoir, 'The Jungle Is Neutral'.

In the course of the war, Chin was awarded an OBE(subsequently withdrawn by the British government), a mention in despatches, and two campaign medals by Britain. He was elected the Secretary General of the Communist Party of Malaya after the betrayal of previous leader Lai Tek who turned out to be an agent for both the British and the Japanese and had denounced the leadership of the Party to the Japanese secret police. Chin Peng was the most senior surviving member.

He gained notoriety for being the leader of the MCP armed insurgency, which led to a large number of civilian casualties. Some have claimed this was in contrast to the stance adopted by Mao Zedong and his policy of the Eight Points of Attention to avoid civilian casualties. He withdrew to southern Thailand with the remnants of his forces during the latter part of the Emergency as a result of security force pressure and at the end of 1960 moved to Beijing, which became his base for many years. He was thus effectively exiled from Malaya and remains so until this day. He was a firm anti-colonialist who opposed the British rule of Malaya, but wished to create a Communist dictatorship under the Malayan Communist Party. For that reason he continued the struggle even after Malaysia achieved independence.

The Emergency

There exists some controversy whether he was responsible for the deaths of civilians and colonialists, marked when members of the Communist Party of Malaya killed three European plantation managers in 1948 in Sungei Siput.[citation needed] Many Singaporean historians and anti-communists allege that Chin Peng knew about and ordered the killings, although there is dissent over this. Some argue that Chin Peng was forty kilometres south and was at a fellow party member's bungalow, and was ignorant of the incident. In his book, written many years later and after the defeat of the CPM, Chin Peng states clearly that he did not order the attacks. The MPAJA had spent most of World War II killing ethnic Chinese who collaborated with the Japanese rather than actual Japanese soldiers, so it is clear that this was similar to their past behaviour.[citation needed] The day of the Sungei Siput killings (16 June 1948) the Malayan colonial administration declared a state of emergency; in mid July 1948 they banned the Communist Party of Malaya. When British troops raided his house. Chin Peng managed to escape, but did lose various documents, including his passport. Unsure of the status of the rest of the party, he eventually learned that his comrade Ah Hai was hiding in Ipoh, and devised a scheme with his sister, disguised as a couple on a reunion, such that he managed to re-establish a secret base there. From then on, the Communist Party of Malaya led an underground insurgency resisting British suppression of the movement.

This initial resistance by the Communist Party of Malaya eventually erupted into full hostility, and developed into a form of a civil war, which became the Malayan Emergency that lasted for twelve years until 1960. In 1960 Chin Peng wished to give up the armed struggle, but, after travelling to China, was told by Deng Xiaoping that South-East Asia was ripe for Revolution. The CPM maintained a theoretical armed struggle for decades after. The death toll eventually climbed into the thousands. Those sympathetic to Chin Peng tend to portray the violence perpetrated by the CPM as defensive, while right-wing opponents tend to portray it as aggressive and unethical. During the Cultural Revolution the CPM was split into three factions and Chin Peng ordered purges resulting in mass trials and many summary executions.

The CPM laid down its arms in 1989. On December 2nd of that year, at the town of Had Yai in Southern Thailand, Chin Peng, Rashid Maidin, and Abdullah C. D. met with representatives of the Malaysian and Thailand governments. Separate peace agreements were signed between the MCP and both governments. One of the terms of the agreement was that MCP members of Malayan origin be allowed to return to live in Malaysia.

Application to return to Malaysia

At the beginning of 2000, Chin Peng applied to be permitted back into Malaysia, and a complex legal issue has arisen out of this. Hearings on whether to permit his return to Malaysia were scheduled for May 25, 2005 but the High Court postponed the hearing to July 25, when his application to be allowed to return to Malaysia was rejected.

His return is opposed by victims of attacks committed by the Communist Party of Malaya, those who served in the armed forces during the Emergency, and members of the public. There has been a resurgence of accounts of the alleged atrocities the Communist Party of Malaya committed in newspapers by those who are against his return to Malaysia (such as the Ex-Servicemen's Association of Malaysia).

Chin Peng has lived in exile in southern Thailand and has also given lectures in the National University of Singapore.

The current Malaysian Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Abdullah Badawi, suggested the Government might reconsider its position in the future. He said he would wait for the outcome of the Court case before making a decision.

In June 2008, Chin Peng again lost his bid to return to Malaysia when the Court of Appeal upheld an earlier ruling that compel him to show identification papers to prove his citizenship. Chin Peng maintained that his birth certificate was seized by the police during a raid in 1948. His counsel, Raja Aziz Addruse, had submitted before the Court of Appeal that it was wrong for the Malaysia government to compel him to produce the documents because he was entitled to enter and live in Malaysia by virtue of the agreement.

Media portrayal

In 2006, a documentary film about Chin Peng was made called The Last Communist. It was banned by Malaysia's Home Affairs Ministry.

Chronology

  • October 22, 1924: Birth.
  • January 1940: Accepted as probationary member of the Communist Party of Malaya (CPM); put in charge of Communist members in Sitiawan.
  • July 4, 1940: Leaves home.
  • December 1941: Communists’ offer of help accepted; joins the fight against the Japanese.
  • January 10, 1942: The first batch of the Malayan Peoples Anti-Japanese Army (MPAJA).
  • 1942: Meets future wife, Khoon Wah.
  • 1945: World War II ends.
  • January 1946: Awarded 2 war medals; boycotts tour of British bases; forced to sign letter of apology.
  • Mid-October 1946: In Penang, Yeung Kuo reveals that Lai Teck has betrayed the CPM; Lai Teck subsequently absconds with most of party’s money.
  • March 6, 1947: MCP Central Executive Committee meeting held to deal with Lai Teck controversy; Lai Teck fails to appear and is never seen by MCP again. Later, Chin Peng is elected secretary-general of MCP.
  • 1948: Three planters killed at Sungei Siput; Emergency declared; MCP declared illegal.
  • Late 1950: Briggs arrives in Malaya and implements "Brigg's plan" – resettling people into "New Villages". If the people refused to move, the British would forcibly remove them and sometimes burn down their houses. This made it difficult for the Communists to gain food supplies from the "Min Yuen", their supporters in the villages.
  • October 6, 1951: Sir Henry Gurney, British High Commissioner in Malaya, is assassinated on Gap road to Fraser's Hill by Siew Ma. It was a "chance" ambush by Siew Ma and his party and not a plan to assassinate Gurney.
  • February 7, 1952: Sir Gerald Templer, arrives to take the place of Gurney, and implements harsh measures against the Communists.
  • December 28, 1955: Baling Talks held with David Marshall and Tunku Abdul Rahman, unsuccessful because of surrender terms. After the Baling Talks, Chin Peng retires to Thailand. Ah Hai replaces him as acting Secretary-General in Malaya.
  • 1960: The Emergency is officially declared at an end. However, fighting still continues.
  • December 2, 1989: A peace treaty is signed between the communists, Thailand and Malaysia. The long, hard war the British had preferred to term an Emergency was over.
  • October 6-8, 2004: Chin Peng visits Singapore for 3 days to speak at the Institute of South-east Asian Studies (ISEAS).
  • 2005: Chin Peng is pending to return to Malaysia. His hearing was scheduled for May 25, 2005, and the High Court postponed it to July 25, 2005. This application was subsequently rejected.
  • June 2008: Chin Peng's lost his bid to return to Malaysia when the Court of Appeal demanded he showed identification papers to prove his Malayan citizenship.

Reference Books

  • 劉鑒銓等人，青山不老－馬共的歷程，(2004)香港：明報出版社 ISBN 962-8871-28-5
  • Chin, C. C., and Karl Hack. eds., Dialogues with Chin Peng: New Light on the Malayan Communist Party. (2004) Singapore: Singapore University Press, 2004 ISBN 9971692872

Notes

  1. ^ C.C. Chin and Karl Hack, Dialogues with Chin Peng, pp. 3, 38.
  2. ^ Chin and Hack, p. 40.
  3. ^ Chin and Hack, p. 39.
  4. ^ Chin and Hack, p. 41.
  5. ^ Chin and Hack, p. 41.

Bibliography

External links

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chin_Peng"

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