Editing Malayan Emergency (section)

==Origins==
{{See also|Circumstances prior to the Malayan Emergency}}

===Socioeconomic issues (1941–1948)===
The economic disruption of World War II (WWII) on [[British Malaya]] led to widespread unemployment, low wages, and high levels of food price inflation. The weak economy was a factor in the growth of trade union movements and caused a rise in communist party membership, with considerable labour unrest and a large number of strikes occurring between 1946 and 1948.{{sfn|Newsinger|2015|p=41}} Malayan communists organised a successful 24-hour general strike on 29 January 1946,<ref name="Eric Stahl 2003">Eric Stahl, "Doomed from the Start: A New Perspective on the Malayan Insurgency" (master's thesis, 2003)</ref> before organising 300 strikes in 1947.<ref name="Eric Stahl 2003" />

To combat rising trade union activity the British used police and soldiers as strikebreakers, and employers enacted mass dismissals, forced evictions of striking workers from their homes, legal harassment, and began cutting the wages of their workers.{{sfn|Newsinger|2015|p=41}} Colonial police responded to rising trade union activity through arrests, deportations, and beating striking workers to death.{{sfn|Newsinger|2015|p=42}} Responding to the attacks against trade unions, communist militants began assassinating [[strikebreaker]]s, and attacking anti-union estates.{{sfn|Newsinger|2015|p=42}} These attacks were used by the colonial occupation as a pretext to conduct mass arrests of left-wing activists.{{sfn|Newsinger|2015|p=41}} On 12 June the British colonial occupation banned the PMFTU, Malaya's largest trade union.{{sfn|Newsinger|2015|p=42}}

Malaya's rubber and tin resources were used by the British to pay war debts to the United States and to recover from the damage of WWII.{{sfn|Newsinger|2015|p=42}} Malaysian rubber exports to the United States were of greater value than all domestic exports from Britain to America, causing Malaya to be viewed by the British as a vital asset.<ref name="De07">{{cite journal |last1=Deery |first1=Phillip |title=Malaya, 1948: Britain's Asian Cold War?|url=https://vuir.vu.edu.au/15471/1/15471.pdf|via=[[Victoria University, Melbourne|Victoria University]] Research Repository|journal=[[Journal of Cold War Studies]]|location=Cambridge, MA|publisher=[[MIT Press]]|date=1 January 2007 |volume=9 |issue=1 |pages=29–54 |doi=10.1162/jcws.2007.9.1.29}}</ref><ref name="Siver, Christi L 2009. p.36" /> Britain had prepared for Malaya to become an independent state, but only by handing power to a government which would be subservient to Britain and allow British businesses to keep control of Malaya's natural resources.{{sfn|Newsinger|2015|p=43}}

===Sungai Siput incident (1948)===
The first shots of the Malayan Emergency were fired during the [[Sungai Siput incident]], on June 17, 1948, in the office of the Elphil Estate near the town of [[Sungai Siput]]. Three European [[plantation]] managers were killed by three young Chinese men suspected to have been communists.

The deaths of these European plantation managers was used by the British colonial occupation to either arrest or kill many of Malaya's communist and trade union leaders. These mass arrests and killings saw many left-wing activists going into hiding and fleeing into the Malayan jungles.

=== Origin and formation of the MNLA (1949) ===
Although the Malayan communists had begun preparations for a guerrilla war against the British, the emergency measures and mass arrest of communists and left-wing activists in 1948 took them by surprise.{{sfn|Newsinger|2015|p=44}} Led by [[Chin Peng]] the remaining Malayan communists retreated to rural areas and formed the [[Malayan National Liberation Army]] (MNLA) on 1 February 1949.<ref name="Postgate69">{{cite book |last1=Postgate |first1=Malcolm |last2=Air Historical Branch |first2=Ministry of Defence |title=Operation Firedog : air support in the Malayan emergency, 1948-1960 |date=1992 |publisher=H.M.S.O |location=London |isbn=9780117727243 |pages=4–14}}</ref>

The MNLA was partly a re-formation of the [[Malayan Peoples' Anti-Japanese Army]] (MPAJA), the communist guerrilla force which had been the principal resistance in Malaya against the [[Japanese occupation of Malaya|Japanese occupation]] during WWII. The British had secretly helped form the MPAJA in 1942 and trained them in the use of explosives, firearms and radios.<ref name="book_the_malayan_emergency_2008_jackson">{{cite book|last=Jackson|first=Robert|title=The Malayan Emergency|year=2008|publisher=Pen & Sword Aviation|location=London|page=10}}</ref> Chin Peng was a veteran anti-fascist and trade unionist who had played an integral role in the MPAJA's resistance.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Bayly |first1=Christopher |last2=Harper |first2=Tim |title=Forgotten Armies: Britain's Asian Empire and the War with Japan |location=New York, NY |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=NWURxfct6SgC&pg=PA1929 |date= 2005 |publisher=Penguin Books Limited |isbn=978-0-14-192719-0 |pages=344–345, 347–348, 350–351}}
</ref> Disbanded in December 1945, the MPAJA officially turned in its weapons to the [[British Military Administration (Malaya)|British Military Administration]], although many MPAJA soldiers secretly hid stockpiles of weapons in jungle hideouts. Members who agreed to disband were offered economic incentives. Around 4,000 members rejected these incentives and went underground.<ref name="book_the_malayan_emergency_2008_jackson" />

The MNLA began their war for Malayan independence from the British Empire by targeting the colonial [[natural resource|resource]] extraction industries, namely the tin mines and rubber plantations which were the main sources of income for the British occupation of Malaya. The MNLA attacked these industries in the hopes of bankrupting the British and winning independence by making the colonial administration too expensive to maintain.{{Citation needed|date=June 2023}}

[[File:Malayan Emergency Bren Gun.jpg|thumb|upright=0.8|Commonwealth propaganda leaflet dropped across Malaya, urging people to come forward with a [[Bren light machine gun|Bren]] gun and receive a [[Malayan dollar|$]]1,000 reward]]{{History of Malaysia}}