MCP and ICP

Journal of Chinese Overseas 6 (2010) 216-249 brill.nl/jco

The Malayan Communist Party and the Indonesian
Communist Party: Features of Co-operation

Hara Fujio*

Abstract
This is an analysis of the relations between the Malayan Communist Party and the Indonesian
Communist Party in several areas. It will begin with a discussion of the mutual support between
the PKI leaders and the Kesatuan Melayu Muda prior to the declaration of Emergency in 1948,
followed by an examination of their cooperation immediately after World War II. The second
part will look at the activities of the MCP members in Indonesia up to the establishment of the
Representative Office of the Malayan National Liberation League in Jakarta. There will be an
account of the overt activities of the Representative Office and its covert activities after its clo-
sure. The article will also ascertain the actual relations between the two based on a close examina-
tion of the official documents of the two parties.

Keywords
Malayan Communist Party, Indonesian Communist Party, Malay Nationalist Party of Malaya,
Representative Office of the Malayan National Liberation League in Indonesia, Ibrahim Yaacob

Introduction1

The Indonesian Communist Party (Partai Komunis Indonesia), henceforth,
PKI, was founded as the Communist Association of the Indies in 1920 as the
first communist party in Asia. It revolted against Dutch colonial rule in 1926-
1927 and received a fatal blow. During the Japanese occupation of Indonesia,
it carried out underground activities in an attempt to gain independence for
Indonesia. Dissatisfied with Sukarno’s political goals, it rose up in arms against
Sukarno’s regime in 1948 and was suppressed. From that time on it moderated
its strategy and cooperated with Sukarno. As a powerful legal leftist party it
became as influential as the rightist Army. However, as a result of the Septem-

* Hara Fujio is Professor of Asian Studies at Nanzan University, Nagoya. His email address is
[email protected].

1 I wish to thank the two anonymous reviewers for the Journal of Chinese Overseas and Profes-
sor Tan Chee-Beng for their professional comments and helpful suggestions. In this article, the
local spellings of Chinese names are romanized and pinyin spellings are in italics.

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2010 DOI: 10.1163/179325410X526113
Also available online – brill.nl/jco

Hara Fujio / Journal of Chinese Overseas 6 (2010) 216-249 217

ber 30th Incident of 1965, allegedly engineered by the PKI to eliminate the
rightists, the Party was banned and many leaders including its Chairman,
Dipa Nusantara Aidit, were executed while hundreds and thousands of party
members were said to have been killed. Though the activities of the Party
inside Indonesia had since stopped, a section of the surviving members
believed that the legal struggle line had brought about this disastrous situation
and hence tried to wage an armed struggle. Those Party leaders who found
political asylum also held such a view. The letters that were sent from the PKI
leaders staying in China to the Malayan Communist Party (henceforth, MCP)
at the end of 1970s reflected this situation. Prior to its resumption of diplo-
matic relations with China later on, the Indonesian government seemed to
have asked the Chinese government to deport those leaders from China and
the latter seemed to have agreed. As such the activities of the PKI came to a
complete stop.

Prominent PKI leaders such as Tan Malaka (1896-1949) had come to
Malaya in an attempt to strengthen the communist organizations / activities
among the Malays. But they encountered harsh suppression by the colonial
authorities which made it difficult for them to spread their influence among
the Malays. As such, their effort barely bore fruit. This episode has already
been well studied.2 But, unlike the relationship between the MCP (founded in
1930) and the Chinese Communist Party (henceforth, CCP), the relationship
between the MCP and the PKI has not been systematically studied so far.
Although in their memoirs some MCP leaders have occasionally mentioned
that a few PKI leaders participated in the MCP, or became part of its leader-
ship, this has not led to thorough research on their relations. Besides, research
work on such Malay leftist movements as the Kesatuan Melayu Muda (KMM,
henceforth, Malay Youth Union) and the Malay Nationalist Party of Malaya
(Parti Kebangsaan Melayu Malaya, henceforth, MNP) has generally been con-
ducted separately from that on the MCP. The KMM as well as the MNP are
regarded as having been inspired and influenced only by Sukarno and his
Indonesian Nationalist Party (INP), and PKI leaders’ involvement in these
Malay leftist movements has almost been ignored. It has scarcely been con-
templated that the PKI leaders were simultaneously involved in both the
Malay leftist movement and in the MCP and that they played a role of bring-
ing the two together. In this article, which reviews the movement of the MCP
and the Malay leftists en bloc, the author attempts to do a comprehensive
study of the PKI’s role in Malaya.

2 The most comprehensive and excellent research on this matter is Cheah (1992).

218 Hara Fujio / Journal of Chinese Overseas 6 (2010) 216-249

Among those who went to Indonesia after the end of the Pacific War to
participate in its War of Independence against Holland, a well known figure
was Ibrahim Yaacob (also spelled Yaakub), President of the KMM (1911-
1979). He fled from Singapore to Jakarta on board a Japanese plane on
19 August 1945, that is, four days after the Japanese surrender, and stayed on
in Indonesia until his death. No research, however, has referred to the MCP
members who went to Indonesia for the same purpose.

In June 1948, the emergency was declared in Malaya and the MCP started
an armed struggle. Driven out by the overwhelming military force of the colo-
nial government, MCP’s main forces moved to southern Thailand. Gradually,
many cadres of underground activities who had remained in Malaya fled to
Indonesia and secretly carried out activities there. In June 1965, the Malayan
National Liberation League (MNLL 马来亚民族解放同盟, a united front
organization of the MCP formed on 1 February 1949) established its Repre-
sentative Office in Indonesia (ROI). Until the September 30th Incident of the
same year the ROI were engaged in legal activities. No research has so far
thoroughly analyzed how the MCP members who had concealed themselves
there earlier got involved in the ROI, what the relations between the MCP
(the ROI) and the PKI were, how the ROI worked, and how the ROI was
closed down. In general, as both the MCP and the PKI belonged to the enthu-
siastic pro-Beijing group when the Sino-Soviet dispute over revolutionary
policies seriously divided the “Communist Block,” relations between the two
parties were perceived to be very close, friendly and cordial. No concrete anal-
yses, however, have been conducted on their actual relations. This article is an
attempt to fill the gaps.

Mutual Support of the Two Parties before the Emergency in Malaya

In this section, the relationship between the KMM, established in 1938, and
the PKI leaders before and during World War II as well as the relationship
between the MNP, which was established as a successor to the KMM in Sep-
tember 1945, and the PKI leaders will be briefly referred to first. Then the
relationship between the MCP and the PKI will be closely examined.

Sutan Djenain of the PKI, and the KMM

It is well known that the Kesatuan Muda Melayu (KMM) was formed under
the strong influence of Sukarno’s nationalism. Abdullah C.D., who joined
both the KMM in 1939 at the age of 16 and the MCP in May 1945 and was

Hara Fujio / Journal of Chinese Overseas 6 (2010) 216-249 219

appointed Chairman of the MCP in 1988, recalled that behind the formation
of the KMM there were Indonesian communists including Sutan Djenain
(presently spelled Jenain) (Abdullah C.D. 1998a: 59). Eng Ming Ching 應敏
欽 who married Abdullah and assumed the new name of Suriani Abdullah in
1955, became an adopted child of Djenain (Abdullah C.D. 1998b: 5, Suriani
Abdullah 2006: 89).3 According to Abdullah, ever since the formation of the
MNP soon after the end of World War II, Djenain frequently came to the
MNP headquarters for theoretical education. The names of the headquarters
(Rumah Merdeka, or House of Independence), the organ magazine (Suluh,
Torch) and the organ paper (Pelita, Lamp) were named by Djenain. As an
MCP member he assisted the Party to expand its influence among the
Malays（Abdullah C.D. 2005:170).

After mentioning that they had always received political education from
Djenain (Sutan Jenain) in the second half of the 1930s (Mustapha Hussain
1999: 187-92; 2005: 130-34), Mustapha Hussain, Vice president of the
KMM, wrote in his memoir that Sutan Jenain time and again urged them to
set up a political body to fight for independence and attended the inaugura-
tion meeting of the KMM (Mustapha Hussain 1999: 197). Mustapha was
detained by the British Military Administration weeks after the Japanese sur-
render. According to him, ever since his release in 1946 Sutan Jenain had
taken care of him and also helped with the re-assemblage of the former KMM
members and the formation as well as affirmation of the Malay Nationalist
Party in 1946-47. All this notwithstanding, some nationalists were nervous
about Sutan Jenain’s MCP connections (Mustapha Hussain 2005: 133-34,
325-28).

After the failure of the PKI rebellion of 1926-1927 Jenain fled to Malaya.
He was said to be a central committee member of the MCP in the second half
of the 1930s (Cheah 1992: 20, 140).4 A note in Mustapha’s memoir, however,
states that Jenain was not an MCP member and that he was regarded by the
MCP as a Trotskyite (Mustapha Hussain 1999: 384, note 19). Together with
100 to 150 cadres of the KMM, Jenain was arrested by the colonial authorities
immediately before the Japanese invasion (Mustapha Hussain 1999: 202;

3 Suriani expresses here her great appreciation to Djenain for his guidance including teaching
her the Indonesian language. Djenain was deported in 1948. It means Abdullah and Suriani,
who married in 1955, were not adopted as husband and wife. Suriani also mentions that soon
after she was born in Sitiawang, she was adopted by a local big man, Ling Chi Kang 林持纲.
Ling is the grandfather of Tun Ling Liong Sik, the former President of the Malaysian Chinese
Asssociation (MCA) (Suriani Abdullah 2006: 2). These adoptions were merely symbolic and
they did not bring about new families.

4 Abdullah C. D. (2005: 169) notes that Jenain had been a cadre of the MCP since the
Japanese occupation period.

220 Hara Fujio / Journal of Chinese Overseas 6 (2010) 216-249

2005: 220, 325-27, 350-52, 371, 391). During the Japanese occupation
Jenain played an important role in propelling the KMM members to join the
Malayan People’s Anti-Japanese Army (MPAJA) (Mohamed Salleh Lamry
2006: 49-50). On the other hand, a politburo member of the MCP, Shan
Ruhong 單汝洪 (alias Ah Hai 阿海), wrote as follows:

Right after the end of the Anti-Japanese War, Jenain was one of the representatives
of the MCP Negeri Sembilan Office. When deported to Indonesia,5 he was wel-
comed by Sukarno and Alimin (Alimin Prawirodirdjo, 1889-1964). When Ah
Hai met Aidit [Secretary-General, later, Chairman of the PKI . . . Author’s note] in
Moscow in 1953, Aidit explained the situation pertaining to him. Ah Hai told
comrades Aidit and Njoto (Second Deputy Secretary General of the PKI) that the
MCP had already restored Jenain’s party membership. Immediately after going
back to Indonesia, they restored Jenain’s membership [of the PKI? . . . Author’s
query] and appointed him as a senior advisor. When he passed away in the second
half of the 1950s, the PKI and Sukarno held a grand funeral ceremony for him
(Shan Ruhong 1999: 163, 195).

According to Mustapha, from the time he was deported to Indonesia until his
death, Jenain lived with the former President of the KMM, Ibrahim Yaacob,
in Jakarta (Mustapha Hussain 1999:192; 2005:134). As Ibrahim Yaacob was
said to have kept a certain distance from both the PKI and the MCP in Indo-
nesia (Bachtiar Djamily 1985: 2-1-204), it seems that the relationship between
Jenain and the PKI after his return was not so cordial toward the end. Though
Jenain played an important role in connecting the two parties, his position in
both parties seemed to have been a sensitive one.

The PKI and the MCP in the Early Postwar Years

(1) PKI Leaders in Malaya
The two distinguished leaders of the PKI who guided the MCP in the early
postwar years were Alimin and Mokhtaruddin Lasso. In his autobiography
Tan Malaka accuses Alimin of being insincere. According to him, when Alimin
was dispatched to Manila where Tan Malaka had been hiding, in order to
receive the instructions with regard to the up-rising plan of 1926, Alimin
shelved Tan Malaka’s letter that urged Alimin to refrain from launching the
planned up-rising of 1926 which was premature and lacking in preparedness
(Tan Malaka 1979: 233-40, 325). After the end of the Pacific War, Alimin
held the highest post in the PKI following the death of its Secretary-General,
Musso, in 1949, until the inauguration of Aidit as Secretary-General in 1951.

5 When the Emergency was declared in June 1948, Jenain was arrested and then deported to
Indonesian (Abdullah C.D. 1998b: 34).

Hara Fujio / Journal of Chinese Overseas 6 (2010) 216-249 221

But criticized for being “extreme left,” he fell from power in 1951. And in
1956, criticized as a “rightist,” he was expelled from the Party (Brackman
1963: 151-52, 193, 228-29).

According to Chin Peng, Alimin stayed in Malaya for several months on his
way back to Indonesia from Moscow and requested the MCP to arrange his
return to Indonesia. During this period, the MCP set up a Marxism school
inviting Alimin as a lecturer and tried to induce Malay nationalists to attend
it (Chin and Hack 2004: 71-72). According to Abdullah C. D., the Marxism
School was established by the Malay Works Division of the MCP in 1946.
Alimin’s lecture was first given in Kuala Lumpur, then in Johor, Perak and
Singapore. Besides such Malay MCP members as Musa Ahmad, Abdullah C.D.
(both were concurrently MNP members), MNP leaders Aisha Ghani (who
later became Health Minister in the Malaysian government) and Ahmad
Boestamam, who were not MCP members, also attended the school. Alimin’s
lecture greatly contributed to the further enlightenment of these Malay nation-
alists (Abdullah C.D. 2005: 161-64). The MCP’s own history also states, “A
senior member of the PKI, comrade Alimin, helped to nurture our party’s
Malay cadres during the peace period of the early postwar days (August 1945-
June 1948)” (MCP. nd: 38).

It is well known that Mokhtaruddin Lasso was the founding president of
the MNP. Prior to coming to Malaya as a part of the Comintern (Communist
International) activities, he had stayed in Moscow for 18 months (Mohamed
Salleh Lamry 2006: 61-62). Abdullah C.D. states that he received political
instructions from Mokhtaruddin after joining the KMM and that Mokhtar-
uddin participated in a Party school as well as the propaganda section of the
MCP toward the end of the Pacific War (Abdullah C.D. 1998b: 26; 2005:
18). One of the founding members of the MNP, Boestamam, notes:
(1) Mokhtaruddin played an active role in the MPAJA during the Japanese
occupation period. (2) He met Mokhtaruddin for the first time when the lat-
ter came out of the MPAJA headquarters immediately after the end of the
War. (3) Mokhtaruddin was deeply involved in the MNP’s organ papers, Suara
Rakyat (Voice of the People, a Malay paper) and the Voice of the People (an
English paper). (4) When the MNP was to be formed, Mokhtaruddin pro-
posed “Parti Sosialis Malaya” (Socialist Party of Malaya) as its name. However,
the name Parti Kebangsaan Melayu Malaya (MNP) proposed by Boestamam
was adopted (Ahmad Boestaman 1979: 11-25). Based on the Soviet strategy
of providing support for Southeast Asian nationalists in order to overthrow
the imperialists, Mokhtaruddin did not interfere in their editorial policies at
all while providing these two papers with funds (Mohamed Salleh Lamry
2006: 85-86). When the Malays clashed with the Chinese in various places
before and after the end of the Japanese occupation, Mokhtarrudin, together

222 Hara Fujio / Journal of Chinese Overseas 6 (2010) 216-249

with Abdullah C.D. and Jenain, made a great effort to mediate between the
two communities as Malay cadres of the MCP (Fang Shan 2005: 281).

There are critical comments as well in the memoirs. Abdullah (1998b:36)
mentions: (1) Among the MNP leaders, Mokhtaruddin was extremely leftist-
leaning. (2) In a Party organ paper Mokhtaruddin advocated a policy to over-
throw the Sultanate system as in Indonesia. The secretary of Perak, Zainal
Abidin, who was an MNP member as well as a relative of Abdullah, contended
that, having no power except to administer the affairs of manners and customs
as well as religion, the sultans were merely the recipients of annual pensions
and allowances from the British government. As such, he admonished, it could
be harmful for the Malay independence movement. The MNP promised to
reassess the situation. The sultans of Pahang, Perak and Selangor had sup-
ported the Anti-Japanese War. Some Sultans were implicitly sympathetic
toward the MNP (Abdullah C.D. 2005:80, 95-96). (3) In the process of the
struggle for independence and building the nation, the MNP had to clearly
stipulate the positions of the rajas and the sultans (traditional rulers in some
states of Malaya are called Sultan, and others are called Raja). This was imple-
mented by correcting the apparently wrong anti-ruler posture which Mokhtar-
uddin had assumed when he was Party President. When Abdullah C.D. was
in charge of the MCP South Malayan Bureau and working in the Johor office
of its Malay Works Division, he informed Sultan Abdullah of Johor about the
policies of the MCP and the MNP toward the Sultan and said that Mokhtar-
uddin’s policy was wrong. The Sultan welcomed it and said that he would
secretly support both the parties’ movement and the independence movement
(Abdullah C.D. 2005: 172, 191). Abdullah C. D. insisted that the MNP’s early
anti-Sultan policies were wrong and held Mokhtaruddin responsible for it.

Informing neither the MCP nor the MNP, Mokhtaruddin left Malaya for
Indonesia (West Sumatra) either toward the end of December 1945 (Ahmad
Boestaman 1979: 72) or in early 1946 (Abdullah C.D. 2005: 118). Abdullah
C.D. has since had no information about him (Abdullah C.D. 1998b: 36-37;
2005: 96).

Other PKI members who participated in the movement in Malaya in the
early postwar years include the following:

– Suparto alias Sulaiman was appointed by Alimin as his successor when the
latter went back to Indonesia in 1946. He traveled to various places in
Malaya as a lecturer of the Party’s Marxism School (Abdullah C.D. 1998b:
48-49).6 A Chinese cadre of the MCP notes that, after having stayed in

6 According to Abdullah C.D. (2005: 191), Suparto had earlier come to Malaya and was
staying in Johor at that time.

Hara Fujio / Journal of Chinese Overseas 6 (2010) 216-249 223

Malaya for as short as two months, Suparto, a senior leader of the PKI,
seemed to have been arrested by the colonial authorities and deported to
Indonesia (Zhang Zuo 2005: 243).
– Shamsiah Fakeh, a Malay woman cadre of the MCP who was dispatched to
Jakarta in 1965 as a member of the Representative Office of the Malayan
National Liberation League in Indonesia, met Suparto, who was called Wak
Parto at the time, again in the same year (Shamsiah Fakeh 2004: 54).
– “Johan” is also occasionally mentioned. He was a Chinese member of the
PKI and when the Malay Works Division of the MCP was set up in 1946,
he helped to collect teaching materials for the division (Abdullah C.D.
2005: 162). When the military training camp, Kem Se-Malaya, in which
Malay MCP members were assembled, was set up in Temerloh, Pahang
between late May and early June 1948, he participated as a representative of
Indonesia (Abdullah C.D. 1998b: 70). He was a member of the 10th Regi-
ment of the MNLA when it was set up on 21 May 1949. At the inaugura-
tion ceremony, he made public a revolutionary song he had composed
entitled “Barisan Gerila Malaya” (Malayan Guerrilla Front) (Suriani Abdul-
lah 1999: 41). He was killed in an ambush by the colonial army in early
1950 (Abdullah C.D. 2007: 260-64). In a document commemorating the
30th anniversary of the establishment of the 10th Regiment (in which
many martyrs are listed), he was praised as a proletarian internationalist
who had devoted his revolutionary life to the liberation of Malaya (Suriani
Abdullah 2006: 163-64).
– Bizar Ahmad, a labor movement leader who was a member of both the
MCP and the PKI, is mentioned in Abdullah C.D.’s memoir. He was
Deputy President of the Pan Malayan General Labour Union (PMGLU,
Keastuan Buruh Berbilang Bangsa) formed in February 1946 under the
leadership of the MCP (Abdullah C.D. 1998b: 53). When the Pan Malayan
Malay Trade Union (PMMTU, Kesatuan Buruh Melayu Se-Malaya), which
was affiliated to the Pan Malayan Federation of Trade Unions (PMFTUs),7
convened a General Assembly in Singapore in 1947, Bizar attended it.
Arguing that trade unions should be multi-ethnic, he opposed a proposal to
establish a Malay section in it. Bizar’s argument was refuted by Abdullah
who contended: “The British colonialists were trying to divide Malay labor-
ers and non-Malay laborers. If we do not grasp Malay laborers, they will
grasp them.” Abdullah’s view was adopted. Bizar assumed the Presidency of
the Singapore branch of the Malay Trade Union. When Abdullah C.D.

7 In order to comply with the colonial government’s suppressive regulations, the PMGLU was
transformed and assumed the new name, Pan Malayan Federation of Trade Unions (PMFTUs),
in February 1947. It was still under the influence of the MCP.

224 Hara Fujio / Journal of Chinese Overseas 6 (2010) 216-249

attended a lecture given by Alimin at the Marxism School in Kuala Lumpur
later on, Bizar also attended. Upon seeing Abdullah at the School, he real-
ized that Abdullah was also an MCP member and apologized to the latter
for his criticism made at the PMMTU General Assembly. Arrested soon
after the proclamation of emergency, Bizar was deported to Indonesia
(Abdullah C.D. 1998b: 61-62; 2005: 147-49, 163). After the Representa-
tive Office of the MNLL in Indonesia was established in 1965, he sup-
ported its activities all the way (Shamsiah Fakeh 2004: 104-105).8
– Abdul Adnan alias Abdul Manan, a district committee member of the MCP,
was arrested on 16 July 1948 together with many other Party cadres; he was
the first Malay to be hanged after the proclamation of Emergency. At that
time, he was living in Kajang, Selangor. He was originally a PKI member
and went on to join both the MCP and the MNP. When executed, he
was only about 20 years old (Suriani Abdullah1999: 25; Abdullah C.D.
1998a: 37).9
– Burhanuddin Tahir alias Taharuddin, a MNP leader who, according to
Abdullah C.D., studied at the MCP’s Military Training School (Sekolah
Parti Kem Se-Malaya). Though seemingly not a PKI member, he was
arrested in Kelantan immediately after the proclamation of emergency and
deported to Indonesia (Abdullah C.D. 2005: 231, 100-101, 122, 178).
Samsuddin Salleh, a central committee member of the Malay Works Divi-
sion of the MCP, took his child to Sumatra to study. Because of the emer-
gency, he could not come back to Malaya. Both Burhanuddin and
Samsuddin continued supporting the revolution movement of Malaya in
Indonesia (Abdullah C.D. 2005: 114, 178).

The above are the typical PKI members (including the leftists who were not
Party members) who were involved in the Malayan leftist movement in which,
generally speaking, many personnel of Indonesian origins participated. The
Angkatan Pemuda Insaf (API. Generation of Aware Youth) which was formed
as the Youth Division of the MNP in February 1946, had a membership of
2,560 in December 1946. Its most important pockets of support were Perak,
Malacca and Pahang, which had sizable Indonesian settlements (Stockwell
1979: 134-35). Many PKI members participated in the Malayan National

8 Here Shamsiah states that she contacted several former MNP members including Ustaz
Kassim.

9 Abdullah C.D. notes that Adnan was a member of the 10th Regiment. As the 10th regiment
was formed in May 1949, his memory may not have been correct [Lin Yan (2001: 106, 110,
111) and Wan Jia’an (2002: 10)].

Hara Fujio / Journal of Chinese Overseas 6 (2010) 216-249 225

Liberation Army (MNLA) (Ibrahim Chik: 1996: 97), which was established
on 1 February 1949.

One of the founders of the KMM and the third president of the MNP,
Ishak Haji Muhammad alias Pak Sako, was arrested in July 1948 during the
emergency and imprisoned till November 1953. According to him, many
political detainees in the same prison originated from Java and Sumatra and
demanded to be sent back to Indonesia. The colonial authority acceded to the
demand and many went back to Indonesia (Ishak bin Haji Muhammad 2004:
210).10 According to Mustapha, most of the Malay MNP members of Balik
Pulau, Penang, were of Aceh origins, and were emotionally attached to the
Party flag which was the same as the Indonesian national flag (Mustapha Hus-
sain 1999: 455; 2005: 338). Abdullah C.D. writes that while most of the
workers in Malaya were Chinese and Indians, a portion of them were Malays
who came from Indonesia (Abdullah C.D. 2005: 131). The reason why many
in the leftist movement of Malaya were of Indonesian origins was that most
members of the Malay working class were of Indonesian origins. Also accord-
ing to Abdullah C.D., there were many revolutionary Indonesian youths in
Jenderam, Selangor. While 11 youths were arrested, some fled to Indonesia to
seek support. The remaining residents of about 1,500 had their houses burnt
and were forced to move to a “new village” (Abdullah C.D. 2005: 102-103).
It is only natural that the PKI exercised much influence over these people of
Indonesian origins.

In the early postwar years, Malay leftists including the MCP’s Malay mem-
bers and the MNP, who had close connections with the PKI, seemed to have
played as important a role as their Chinese counterpart. Why then did the
Malay section of the movement turn out to be not comparable to the Chinese
section after the proclamation of the emergency? One of the reasons men-
tioned by a few MCP leaders was Ahmad Boestamam’s arrest. In May 1948,
Abdullah C.D. met Boestamam and Burhanuddin and agreed to launch an
armed struggle. While Abdullah and Boestamam were to enter the jungle to
lead the armed struggle, Dr. Burhanuddin Al-Hemly was to be engaged in
underground anti-British activities in support of the armed struggle. Boesta-
mam who was supreme head (Ketua Besar) of the API intended to locate his
troops’ headquarters in Tanjung Malim, Perak (Abdullah C.D. 1998b: 68-69).
Though the API had been banned on 18 July 1947, without knowing about
Boestamam’s arrest of 1 July 1948,11 its ex-members waited for him to arrive
to take them into the guerrilla force. For example, in a Malay village near

10 Nonetheless, Ishak states that many of them returned to Malaya from Indonesia later.
11 This date of the arrest is based on Ahmad Boestamam’s memoir (2004: 248). Boestamam
himself does not refer to this agreement.

226 Hara Fujio / Journal of Chinese Overseas 6 (2010) 216-249

Taiping, Perak, there were 12 or 13 such young men. They waited for a year in
vain and dispersed (Abdullah C.D. 1998b: 68-69; 1998a: 12-13; Suriani
Abdullah 1999: 43; Zhang Zuo 2005: 323). Besides this group, more than
550 young Malay leftists in North Perak who had planned to join the 10th
Regiment of the Malayan National Liberation Army were arrested due to the
lack of experience (Suriani Abdullah 1999: 42). Another reason given for the
reduced Malay forces was the Piul Incident (in Pahang) toward the end of
1949. In a battle fought with the colonial army, 100 members of the 10th
Regiment deserted and returned to their respective home villages due to the
wrong directives given by the leaders (Abdullah C.D. 1998b: 103-111; Suri-
ani Abdullah 1999: 57-61).12 For these reasons, according to the Party sources,
the Malay leftist movement was not as well organized as that of the Chinese.

(2) MCP’s Support for the Indonesian Independence Struggle
It is well known that the President of the KMM, Ibrahim Yaacob, fled to Indo-
nesia immediately after the Pacific War and joined the struggle for Indonesian
independence. It is barely known that other KMM leaders close to him also
took up the same cause. Among others, KMM’s First Secretary, Hassan Hj.
Manan, and its Central Committee member who was also Ibrahim Yaacob’s
brother-in-law, Onan Hj. Siraj, took the same Japanese bomber as did Ibra-
him Yaacob and fled to Indonesia (Mustapha Hussain 1999: 206-27). How-
ever, as they were not MCP members, there is no need for elaboration here.
Among the leaders of the MNP, there were many MCP members. Some of
them moved to Indonesia and participated in its independence movement.

Zulkifli Auni (also spelt Ownie) was Deputy Secretary General of the MNP
when it was founded. When Dr. Burhanuddin Al-Helmy assumed its presi-
dency upon the disappearance of Mokhtaruddin, Zulkifli became its Secretary
General. Born in Sumatra, Zulkifli had joined the KMM before the War. Dur-
ing the anti-Japanese war, he joined the MCP and took part in its mass work.
Soon after being inaugurated as Secretary General, however, he left Malaya in
order to join the revolutionary struggle of Indonesia (Abdullah C.D. 2005:
48, 84, 93, 126, 156, 163; Ahmad Boestamam 1979: 72, 75). Prior to Zulkifli,
MNP’s first Secretary General, Mohammed Dahari bin Hj. Mohd. Ali,
(Dahari Ali) had expressed his intention to participate in the Indonesian revo-
lutionary movement and left the Party for that purpose (Abdullah C.D. 2005:
48, 84, 93, 126, 156, 163; Ahmad Boestaman 1979: 7, 9, 25).13 Zulkifli’s

12 “Leaders” here refers to Musa Ahmad and Wahi Anuar who were regarded as betrayers by
the MCP later. As such the objectivity of this observation has yet to be proven.

13 Dahari Ali stayed in Indonesia only between 1946 and 1948. He then came back to Malaya

Hara Fujio / Journal of Chinese Overseas 6 (2010) 216-249 227

Deputy, M. Maza, left the Party and entered Indonesia at the same time as
Zulkifli (Abdullah C.D. 2005: 126, 156).

Summarizing these movements, Abdullah C.D. concludes: “Many person-
nel who had anti-imperialist spirit, inter alia those who originated from Indo-
nesia, voluntarily sailed to Indonesia in order to join its revolution. . . . The
Central Committee of the MCP decided to resolutely support the revolution
of the Indonesian people led by Sukarno and Hatta” (Abdullah C.D. 2005:
156-57). The MCP itself dispatched a large number of (sejumlah) volunteer
soldiers to Indonesia (Abdullah C.D. 2005: 152). MCP’s own records, too,
stated that it dispatched a group of its members to Indonesia in order to sup-
port its people’s righteous anti-Dutch struggle (MCP, nd: 38). One of the
Malay politburo members of the MCP, Rashid Maidin, also states that the
Party formed an organization to support the Indonesian revolution (Rashid
Maidin 2005: 26). Abdullah C.D.’s mention of “Supporters for Independent
Indonesia” (Pembantu Indonesia Merdeka) (Abdullah C.D. 2005: 158) could
be made in reference to this organization. Led by Bizar, the wharf laborers in
Singapore who were under the influence of the MCP refused several times to
handle Dutch freight. The Dutch ships had no alternative but to turn back
(Abdullah C.D. 2005: 157-58).14 Through Abdul Karim Rashid, a former
Central Committee member of the KMM who was close to the MNP, Hatta
of Indonesia asked the MCP to supply arms. In response to this request,
Abdullah C. D. sent arms through a secret organization (Abdullah C.D. 2005:
158-59).15

The MCP had taken up the position of supporting the Indonesian struggle
before the proclamation of emergency in 1948.

(3) MCP Leader’s Visit to Indonesia
Invited both by a leftist Chinese leader, Siauw Giok Tjhan 蕭玉燦, and the
PKI leaders, Eng Ming Ching (later Suriani Abdullah), Secretary General of
the MCP’s Singapore Office, visited Indonesia in mid-1947. Eng stayed until
early 1948 and promoted exchanges with leaders of the independence move-
ment. On the second anniversary of Indonesia’s independence, she met
Sukarno. Requested by Siauw who was Minister of the Minorities at the time,
Eng made a broadcast in Chinese of messages on the radio appealing to the

and joined the United Malays National Organization (UMNO) in 1954. As an UMNO mem-
ber, he became a Member of Parliament in 1959.

14 Chin Peng (2003: 141) states that on 21 October, some 7,000 wharf laborers refused to
work on ships carrying arms for Dutch troops.

15 Abdullah states that as the airplane did not arrive on the appointed day, he had thus come
back in vain. As such, it seems the arms could not be sent.

228 Hara Fujio / Journal of Chinese Overseas 6 (2010) 216-249

Chinese in Indonesia to oppose Dutch imperialism and support the Republic
of Indonesia. Requested by a Chinese leader of the PKI, Tan Ling Che (Tan
Ling Djie 陳粦如),16 she also broadcast commentaries from the “Radio of
Republic of Indonesia” every night. Oey Hay Djoen 黄海春 who took her to
various places in East Java and who became a Member of Parliament later,
completed the Indonesian translation of The Capital by Marx in 2005 (Suriani
Abdullah: 2006: 91-93).

MCP Members’ Activities in Indonesia

Rapprochement between the MCP and the British colonial authorities at the
end of World War II lasted only for a short time before repression culminated
in the proclamation of the Emergency in 1948. After that, the leftists, who
had participated in legal activities, either entered the jungle to become guerril-
las or moved to urban areas to secretly engage in underground activities. As
underground activities also gradually became difficult, the underground ele-
ments had to get out of Malaya. Some guerrillas in southern Malaya could not
retreat to southern Thailand and had to look for another country to take shel-
ter; the pivotal country was Indonesia. I shall discuss (a) when and how they
moved to Indonesia, (b) what they did there, and (c) how the PKI came to be
involved with them.

Situation Prior to the Establishment of the Representative Office of the MNLL (to
June 1965)

Chin Peng, Secretary-General of the MCP since 1947, states in his memoir as
follows:

In 1951, the Singapore Police directed a series of lightning raids against the CPM
(meaning MCP)’s infrastructure on the island. . . . As the crackdown escalated I
issued instructions . . . to withdraw to any convenient safe destination. Some left
for Indonesia. Others went to China (Chin Peng 2003: 278-79).

16 Tan Ling Djie was born in Surabaya in 1904. He joined the PKI in 1936 as a secret mem-
ber, and became Secretary-General of the Socialist Party of Indonesia in 1947. Upon the merger
of the Socialist Party, the PKI and the Labor Party in 1948, he was appointed Deputy Secretary
of the PKI and became its Secretary-General between September 1948 and 1953. He was criti-
cized as a revisionist and dismissed not only as Secretary-General but also from the Central
Committee in 1953. He was arrested in 1967 and died in prison in 1969 (Zhou Nanjing 1993:
454; Li and Huang 1987: 369).

Hara Fujio / Journal of Chinese Overseas 6 (2010) 216-249 229

. . . [A]fter Yeung Kuo 楊果 was killed (in August 1956), some of the leading
members of the Singapore [Author’s note] City Working Committee moved to
Indonesia because they were unsafe in Singapore (Chin and Hack 2004: 188,
201).
. . . By early 1957, we were contemplating dispatching our entire remaining guer-
rilla force to Indonesia. We actually began smuggling some as unarmed individu-
als in boats across the Straits of Malacca (Chin Peng 2003: 398).
. . . [At the end of 1958 or early 1959] we issued a directive for the Penang guer-
rillas to dissolve. At that time there were about 30 in Penang. Approximately ten
of them went to Singapore. The remainder (20 or so) were smuggled into Sumatra
by fishing vessels. . . Half of them went to Medan. The rest sailed to Aceh after we
had arranged their passages through our connections with the Aceh rebels (Chin
Peng 2003: 405-406; Chin and Hack 2004: 213, 216).

(1) The Earliest Stowaways to Indonesia
In 1951, of the remaining guerrillas in Malacca, those who possessed legal
identity cards were to return to the masses, and those who had no ICs were
to be smuggled into Indonesia. The first few, who did not carry ICs had no
other way but to go to the Chinese Embassy or consulates where they were
issued with certificates and returned to China. For example, three who smug-
gled from Malacca to Sumatra were arrested by the police and taken to Medan
where they met similar stowaways. Mr. Shen Yifang 沈一帆 of the Chinese
consulate gave them advice on participating in the construction of socialism.
Using certification issued by him, more than ten persons returned to China
( Jianzheng Congshubianweihui 2003: 163-64).

It is believed that there were no systematic organizations to help the MCP
members on their voyages at that time. There seems to have been no consulta-
tion between the MCP and the PKI regarding the transport of MCP members
into Indonesia.

(2) Stowaways among the Leaders of the MCP

As far as I know, the earliest MCP leaders who secretly sailed to Indonesia
were Abdullah Sudin, Zhang Jian (張堅 @ 黄民強 Huang Minqiang) and
Zhan Zhongqian (詹忠謙 @ Zhang Zhongliang 張忠良).

Sudin was born in Singapore. His father was Thai. He joined the Kesatuan
Melayu Muda (KMM Malay Youth Union)17 in the early 1940s, the Malay
Nationalist Party (Parti Kebangsaan Melayu Malaya)18 as well as the Malayan
Democratic Union (MDU)19 toward the end of 1945, and the MCP at the

17 KMM was established by Malay leftists in 1938.
18 MNP was established by Malay leftists in September 1945.
19 MDU was a moderate leftist party established in December 1945 under the influence of
the MCP. Its members were mainly English-educated Chinese.

230 Hara Fujio / Journal of Chinese Overseas 6 (2010) 216-249

end of the 1940s. He worked in a Malay newspaper company, Utusan Melayu.
In 1952, in accordance with the order of the MCP, he left Singapore and went
to Indonesia to escape arrest by the police. In Indonesia, he tried to strengthen
the financial basis of the underground organizations, get in touch with the
PKI, put up a united front with the influential Indonesian officials and work
on Malayan students studying there. He founded Persatuan Pemuda Malaya
di Indonesia (P2MI, Malayan Youth Association in Indonesia). He became a
member of the Representative Office of the MNLL in Indonesia (ROMNLLI,
henceforth, ROI) in 1965. Arrested by the Indonesian authority after the Sep-
tember 30 Incident, he was deported to China together with other ROI mem-
bers in December 1966 (Suriani Abdullah 1999: 266-67).

Zhang Jian and Zhan Zhongqian who were both MCP Student Committee
members of Singapore, went to Indonesia in 1952. They often traveled back
and forth between the two territories (Chen Jian 2006: 32, 291).

The highest-ranking leader of the MPC in Singapore after its Singapore
City Committee was clamped down in the early 1950s was Eu Chooi Yip
余柱業 who went to Indonesia on the order of Yeung Kuo, deputy secretary
general of the MCP, in 1953. His reminiscence of the trip is as follows:

A student from Indonesia took me there. As the inspection was not so strict at
that time, I obtained a passenger’s ticket to travel from Medan to Jakarta via Sin-
gapore. In Jakarta, I used a birth certificate of a resident of Medan. My wife, Zeng
Aishan 曾愛善, also came to Jakarta in May 1953. I stayed in Jakarta for almost
13 years. Besides engaging in Party activities, I made a living by working as a trade
company’s clerk in charge of the English language, a reporter of an economic
magazine, a translator of the national radio station (translating the Indonesian
language into Chinese) and so on. In 1959, a liaison station was established in
Riau. Though at first we had only 11 or 12 Party members, we had tens of them
after the mass arrests at the time of the formation of the Barisan Sosialis (Socialist
Front) in 1961. We worked as a small unit made up of a few persons and had no
contact with each other. As Indonesia had friendly relations with China, the local
Chinese enthusiastically supported China. We, however, kept away from the Chi-
nese Embassy. We had postal contact with the Representative Office of the Party
Headquarters in China. They knew how many of us were stationed in Indonesia.
Sudin worked on Malay students from Malaya as well as a large number of Malays
who had been taken from Malaya by the Japanese Army during the Pacific
War and stayed on here after the end of the War. He established relationship with
the PKI Youth Bureau. It was difficult, however, to contact the top leaders of
the PKI.

Prior to my visit to China in mid-1957, a MCP representative in China
informed D. N. Aidit, Chairman of the PKI who was visiting China, of our pres-
ence in Indonesia. A mission was sent to us by Aidit to establish official relations.
But our relationship remained at the level of general mutual assistance and had
barely direct relations. During this period we could not communicate with the

Hara Fujio / Journal of Chinese Overseas 6 (2010) 216-249 231

Party Headquarters directly. We resorted to such a circuitous way of communica-
tion as handing a letter to a comrade of the PKI to take to the CCP, which then
forwarded it to the MCP. Before the “Confrontation” between Malaysia and
Indonesia our relationship with the PKI was not so close (Yu Zhuye 1992: 126,
146, 159).

In 1957, Fang Chuang Pi (Fong Chong Pik 方壮璧), the highest ranking
MCP leader in charge of Singapore after Eu Chooi Yip had left the island,
came to Indonesia. Together with a liaison officer, he reached Jakarta through
the Riau islands and Jambi (central Sumatra) and met Eu there. A decision
was made to form the “Three Persons’ Working Cell” 三人工作組 consisting
of Eu, Zhang Jian and Fang who was to lead the activities in Singapore. Fang
was to command the activities in Singapore. After taking one month on Riau
islands waiting for the re-establishment of contact, Fang arrived in Singapore
in early 1958. In March that year, he talked with Lee Kuan Yew 李光耀, then
Chief Minister of Singapore, for the first time. (It is well known that Fang
would continue negotiating with Lee as a Plen [plenipotentiary] of the MCP
after that.) At the end of 1961, based on the plans of the Three Persons’ Work-
ing Cell, the cadres who had remained in Singapore began to leave. More
than 50 persons had evacuated by 1963 or 1964 (Fang Zhuangbi 2006).

After going back to Indonesia once, Fang visited China in 1976 (Fang
Zhuangbi 2000a: 114).20 He then left Riau islands in the second half of 1977
and reached the base in southern Thailand via Jakarta, the neighboring coun-
tries and Bangkok (Fang Zhuangbi 2000a: 14).

In <余柱業略傳> (Brief Biography of Eu Chooi Yip) by C. C. Chin 陳剣,
the author records the activities and strategies of the MCP cadres who stayed
in Indonesia (summarized as follows by Author):

When he visited China in 1957, Eu reported the political situation to the secre-
tary of the Overseas Politbureau of the MCP, Xiao Zhang (小張 @ Zhang Lingyun
章凌雲). Xiao Zhang praised the MCP’s strategy of cooperation with Lee Kuan
Yew. Eu was cordially received and taken to various places by Huang Wei 黄薇
[returned overseas Chinese who had earlier worked in Malaya as well as in the Philip-
pines. . . . Author’s note]. After Eu returned to Indonesia, the “Singapore Branch of
the MCP in Indonesia” was formed, with Eu as Pesident, and Zhang Jian and
Zhan Zhongqian as committee members. The student movement of 1954 and
large scale strikes of 1955 were criticized as extremism by Yeung Kuo, deputy
secretary general of the MCP, in early 1956 and by the Central Committee of the
MCP in 1957. In response to this criticism and discussion with the secretary of
the Overseas Politbureau, the MCP Singapore Branch in Indonesia decided to
form a United Anti-Colonial Front with Lee Kuan Yew. After the Three Persons’

20 In a record dated August 1995, he stated that he had come to Guangzhou 19 years earlier.

232 Hara Fujio / Journal of Chinese Overseas 6 (2010) 216-249

Working Cell was formed, it entrusted Fang with plenary powers to restore rela-
tions with Lee [a possible reason why Fang was called “Plen”. . . . Author’s note].
While the left wing of the People’s Action Party (PAP人民行動党) distrusted Lee
at that time, the MCP leadership had an illusion about him. Many leftists recalled
that the relationship was like hu mou pi (虎謀皮 to be killed by a tiger by asking
it for its fur).

In 1959, Eu and Zhang Jian were appointed Central Committee Members. In
order to retreat from Singapore, liaison stations were established at a photo
shop on Moro Island and at a sundries shop in Tanjung Pinang in the Riau
islands in 1961. At the end of that year, Eu visited China again to meet Chin
Peng. Chin Peng told Eu that the Singapore Branch in Indonesia would
become the Party’s South Malayan Bureau, Zhang Jian being its secretary, Eu
and Fang being its Committee Members. The PAP split in July 1961 and
resulted in its leftwing forming itself into the Barisan Sosialis (BS. 社会主義
陣綫) which was officially registered on 17 September. Prior to the General
Elections of 1963, the PAP government arrested more than 100 leftists under
“Operation Cold Store.” Nearly 60 persons including Fang, Chan Sun Wing
陳新嶸 and Wong Soon Fong 黄信芳 fled to Indonesia (to be referred to
later). In October 1963, as a result of the reshuffle of the South Malayan
Bureau, Eu became the secretary, and Zhang Jiang and Fang the Committee
Members. In mid-1964, in order to avoid a concentration of members in
Jakarta and to prepare for the resumption of underground activities in Malaya,
some were dispatched to Medan, Aceh, Bagan Api-Api of Sumatra and to
Bintan Island and Batam Island of the Riau islands. They were to establish
new bases or new liaison stations. At the end of that year, seven members were
detained, having been suspected as Malaysian agents on their way from Medan
to Aceh. Eu’s explanation to the police through the PKI was to no effect.
Finally they were released after bribing the police (Chen Jian 2006: 32-48,
286-95).21

With regard to the arrest of the seven members, Eu himself states as follows:

They were arrested before we started open activities. Their task was to establish
bases for the infiltration of members into Malaysia. Through Nyoto of the PKI,
we asked President Sukarno for their release. Though Sukarno ordered their
release, the Army and the Police did not carry out the order and the detention
lasted several years. At that time, bribes were prevalent in Indonesia and they were
finally released after a bribe was paid. After that, they all left Indonesia safely.
Most of them went to work at a radio station in China [possibly the Revolution-

21 According to a recently published source, their release by bribing took place more than
three years after their arrest, i.e., after Suharto had taken power (Tainan Banlang Hepingcun
2007: 21).

Hara Fujio / Journal of Chinese Overseas 6 (2010) 216-249 233

ary Radio of Malaya, Radio Revolusi Malaya 馬來亞革命之声. . . . Author].
Some went on to the Thai-Malaysian border (Yu Zhuye 1992: 148-50; Chen Jian
2006: 198-99).

Wong Soon Fong, a leader of the movement of the farmers and workers in
Singapore and a member of the PAP, was elected a Legislative Assembly mem-
ber in 1959. In September 1963, i.e. soon after the formation of Malaysia, he
stood for the Legislative Assembly elections for BS and won. But a warrant for
his arrest was issued on 8 October. In November 1963, together with another
BS Legislative Assembly member, Chan Sun Wing, for whom a warrant was
also issued, they fled to Indonesia as the last evacuees. While staying in Tan-
jung Pinang Island for more than a month, they obtained birth certificates
with false names as well as national certificates and arrived in Jakarta on a pas-
senger ship of ten thousand tons (Huang Xinfang 2007: 93).

Among the nearly 60 persons mentioned above, there were leaders of a
semi-open underground movement who would later move from Indonesia to
southern Thailand to join an armed struggle. Among them, Fang Mingwu
方明武, Wei Gengchun 魏庚春 would settle in southern Thailand. Fang Shan
方山 would return to Kuala Lumpur. Their activities in Indonesia will be
discussed later.

Representative Office of the Malayan National Liberation League in Indonesia

As the Malayan Prime Minister Tunku Abdul Rahman announced the idea of
forming Malaysia, the Indonesian Foreign Minister Subandrio proclaimed
“Konfrontasi” against Malaysia in January 1963. Relations between the two
countries deteriorated rapidly from then on. The MCP, which had been strug-
gling to overthrow the Malayan government, should accordingly become a
valuable ally of the Sukarno government and the PKI which supported it.
On that subject — and immediately after his statement in the quotation
above — Eu had this to say [summarized by Author]:

(1) Representative Office of the MNLL, according to Eu Chooi Yip

After the Konfrontasi started, the relationship between the MCP and the PKI
became closer in their open activities as well. Before then we had no other way but
to work secretly and to maintain our strength. Taking advantage of this opportu-
nity, we tried to win legal status and expand our propaganda. As a result of a
concerted effort by the MCP and the PKI to negotiate with the Indonesian gov-
ernment, the ROI of the MNLL was approved. Using the Representative Office
of the South Vietnam National Liberation Front our model, it was like a small-
scale embassy. Our task was to promote MCP’s armed struggle in order to expand

234 Hara Fujio / Journal of Chinese Overseas 6 (2010) 216-249

its influence abroad and to form the supporting organizations among Malays liv-
ing in Indonesia. We set up the Co-operate Organization (Badan Kerjasama) with
various organizations related to the PKI and the Indonesian Nationalist Party
(Partai Nasionalis Indonesia, PNI). The ROI members participated in various
activities supervised by the PKI and, accompanying the PKI, attended various
international conferences such as World Peace Conference held in Helsinki (June
1965), Afro-Asian Solidarity Conference in Ghana (May), Afro-Asian Confer-
ence in Algiers (June), and Peace Conference in Tokyo (August). We visited Cairo
as well. Traveling expenses were paid by the PKI.

Unable to contact the MCP inside Malaya, representatives of some under-
ground organizations in Malaya visited us also. Not all of them were MCP mem-
bers. Some of them were trained in parachuting by the Indonesian government
and returned to Malaya to engage in underground activities. Some, after being
exploited by the Indonesian government, were killed by pro-Malaysian agents
inside the Indonesian government.

Although ROI’s open activities only lasted for the short period of several
months, we were very busy and our propaganda was so effective that it had greatly
influenced the Malayan people living in Indonesia. While the Indonesian govern-
ment, using us, tried to overthrow the Malaysian government, we, using this
protection, tried to carry out open activities and to expand our propaganda. The
Indonesian government symbolically paid for our expenses. While a portion of
expenses was covered by our own earnings from undertaking various works, most
of them were borne by the PKI. Sometimes we made statements through the PKI.
Sometimes we also helped the PKI in translating their documents into English.

The Indonesian government sent its personnel to the MCP Headquarters on
the Thai-Malaysian border once, in order to initiate a combined effort to over-
throw the Tunku’s government. The MCP however, rejected this proposal
because they feared they might be taken advantage of by the Indonesian gov-
ernment (Yu Zhuye 1992: 144-48).

With regard to that last point, that the MCP did not fully trust the Indo-
nesian government, Fang Chuang Pi also mentioned later that he had been
skeptical about the tactics of parachuting militarily trained Malays into Johor
(Fang Zhuangbi 2000a: 170).

(2) Representative Office of the MNLL, according to Shamsiah Fakeh
Circumstances inside Indonesia surrounding the establishment of the ROI
were as described above. Shamsiah Fakeh, a Malay MCP cadre who had been
sent from China, presented, however, another view. Probably because she was
expelled from the MCP later, her memoir seems to expose her thinking more
freely. She noted in her memoir the following (Shamsiah Fakeh 2004: 93,
97-110):

Hara Fujio / Journal of Chinese Overseas 6 (2010) 216-249 235

In November 1964, Chairman of the MCP, Musa Ahmad, conveyed to me the
Party’s decision to attend, accompanying Ibrahim Mohamad,22 the International
Conference to Support Vietnamese People and Oppose Invasion by the United
States, and then to go to Indonesia. We asked the MCP’s representative in Viet-
nam, Siao (sometimes mentioned as Siou) Mien, the Chinese delegation, and
Suroso of the Indonesian delegation to prepare our passage to Indonesia. Suroso
told us to wait in Guangzhou and then sent us diplomatic passports in early Feb-
ruary 1965. We hurriedly left for Indonesia. Many people including Sudin,
Nyoto, Third Deputy Chairman of the PKI [Nyoto was Second Deputy Chairman

at that time. . . . Author’s note] and news reporters met us at Jakarta Airport. In

May 1965, Ibrahim Mohamad and Eu attended the Afro-Asian People’s

Solidarity Conference held in Winneba, Ghana.23
Convening a press conference on 2 June, Ibrahim Mohamad officially

announced the establishment of the ROMNLLI, its president being Ibrahim, Eu
his deputy, Sudin the secretary and Shamsiah a member.24

After the ROI was established, we met Chairman Aidit, Nyoto and Suroso to
convey our gratitude. The PKI provided us with a small car and an office. We were
widely supported by mass-organizations, especially PKI-related ones, and were
invited to their important rallies to deliver speeches.

On 20 June 1965, we convened an assembly to commemorate the 17th anni-
versary of the launching of the anti-British armed struggle. Its program included
a report given by Ibrahim Mohamad, the singing of Malayan revolutionary songs
by the PKI Youth Chorus and a speech by Chairman Aidit. After his speech, the
participants shouted “Long Live Aidit!” 25

On 21 July we held an invitation party to commemorate the establishment of
the ROI. Indonesian Third Prime Minister, Khairul Salleh [usually spelled Chaerul
Saleh. . . . Author’s note]. Dharma, a retired General of the Air Force, M. H. Lok-
man (Lukman), the First Deputy Chairman of the PKI, and others attended.

22 Ibrahim Mohamad, husband of Shamsiah, had been staying with her in China since
1957.

23 It means Ibrahim and Eu attended the conference prior to the official establishment of the
Office. Based on the information of the Antara news agency, the People’s Daily in China reported
16 May 1965 that on 2 May the MNLL presented a statement to condemn “Malaysia” as a
product of new colonialism at the 4th Afro-Asian People’s Solidarity Conference held in Ghana.
It did not mention who had presented it.

24 People’s Daily reported on 6 June 1965 as follows: Convening a press conference on 2 June,
a leader of the Malayan National Liberation Federation 馬來亞民族解放聯盟, Ibrahim
Mohamad, announced the establishment of its Representative Office in Indonesia and distrib-
uted news of the declaration to overthrow “Malaysia,” which had been announced by the Central
Committee of the MNLL on 15 March.

25 People’s Daily reported on 23 June 1965: On 21 June, the Representative Office of the
MNLL 馬來亞民族解放同盟 convened a mass rally in Jakarta to commemorate the 17th anni-
versary of the launching of the Malayan National Liberation War which drew more than a
thousand people. Minister of General Co-ordination of the Indonesian government, Chairman
Aidit, First Deputy Chairman, Lukman, and Secretary General, Sudisman of PKI attended. The
rally resolved to oppose “Malaysia” and to support the “Malayan people’s just struggle.”

236 Hara Fujio / Journal of Chinese Overseas 6 (2010) 216-249

In August, Ibrahim Mohamad and I attended the 11th World Conference
for Prohibiting Atomic and Hydrogen Bombs 原水爆禁止世界大会 held in
Tokyo.

In Indonesia, prior to setting up the ROI, Sudin had formed P2MI. It was
publishing a monthly magazine, Tanah Air (home country) the circulation of
which was about 300. Ibrahim Yaacob, former president of Kesatuan Melayu
Muda (KMM, Malay Youth Union., the first Malay left wing organization of
Malaya that was formed in 1938) had been leading Gerakan Kemerdekaan Malaya
(GKM, Malayan Independence Movement). GKM split into two later. Establish-
ing close relations both with P2MI and GKM, the ROI formed the Co-operating
Organization for Genuine Independence of Malaya (Badan Kerjasama untuk
Kemerdekaan Sejati Malaya)26 with them on 29 September 1965. To inaugurate
it, we held a dinner reception. Minister of the President Department, Oi Chu Tat
[used to be spelled Oei Tjoe Tat 黄自達, leader of Badan Permusyawaratan Kewar-
ganegaraan Indonesia or Baperki, and at the same time vice president of Partai Indo-
nesia or Parindo. . . . Author’s note] attended it. In that year, we also met A.M.
Azahari (1928-2002) who had sought political asylum in Indonesia. [Azahari was
Chairman of the People’s Party of Brunei (Partai Rakyat Brunei) who led the Brunei
Revolt of 1962. He was also Prime Minister of the Revolutionary Government of
Unitary State of North Kalimantan. . . . Author’s note.]

After the September 30th Incident, four members of the ROI attended “The
International Conference to Oppose Foreign Military Bases” held in Bali and
Jakarta in mid-October. Ibrahim Mohamad spoke with President Sukarno who
attended it.

(3) Arrest of the Members of the Representative Office
Supported both by the Indonesian government and the PKI, the ROI expanded
its influence among Malayan people living there. The September 30th Inci-
dent, however, totally changed the situation. General Suharto who seized
power started to thoroughly uproot the left-wing elements. All of the four
members of the ROI were arrested and the ROI itself was disbanded (although,
seeing the increasingly tense situation, some of the office staff went into hiding
and escaped arrest) (Chen Jian 2006: 203). On the other hand, most of the
MCP members, avoiding open activities even when the ROI was officially
recognized, were able to escape arrest.

The four ROI members were arrested together on 17 November 1965. Mrs.
Sudin as well as Mrs. Eu were not detained. Shamsiah notes as follows [sum-
marized by author]:

Several days before our arrest, soldiers came to the office and by falsely accusing
us of making secret broadcasts, threatened us. We let them in to inspect the office
and they saw that we had no broadcasting equipment. After our arrest, we were

26 It is not clear whether this is same as the Co-operate Organization mentioned by Eu Chooi
Yip.

Hara Fujio / Journal of Chinese Overseas 6 (2010) 216-249 237

interrogated about the source of our money as well as relations with the PKI. We
said, “Money came via Hong Kong. We merely seek moral support from the
Indonesian people. We are not involved in Indonesian internal politics. We have
fraternal relations with all the Islamic parties and the Nationalist parties only.”
Some of the self-proclaimed members of the Republic of Malaya were also put in
prison as intelligence agents (Shamsiah Fakeh 2004: 111-12).

Eu Chooi Yip’s memoir depicts a more interesting background to their arrest.
It is summarized below:

After the September 30th Incident, Ibrahim Yaacob informed on us to the police.
While we worked legally, president of the ROI, Ibrahim Mohamad, got in touch
with him. Yaacob had intended to cooperate with us in the anti-Britain and anti-
Tunku Abdul Rahman movement. He had communicated with the PKI. After
the coup, however, claiming that he had nothing to do with the PKI, he turned
into an extreme anti-communist. He accused us of being communists and agents
of the PKI, and that, supporting the PKI, we had participated in the coup. As a
result of that, we were arrested. Prior to the Incident, anticipating unfavorable
developments, Sudin had advised us that as he would take care of the conse-
quences we all should escape. I replied, “We are genuine representatives. If we
suddenly run away we would be regarded as fearing punishment. As we are not
involved in the coup, it is not necessary to run away. Let us wait for them to
come.”

My wife and Sudin’s wife asked the Embassy of Vietnam and the Representa-
tive Office of the South Vietnam National Liberation Front to rescue them. They
said Vietnam would accept our application for political asylum. After long nego-
tiations between the Indonesian government and the Vietnamese Embassy, we
were released in November 1966, i.e., one year later. We stayed at the Vietnamese
Embassy for two weeks. On the way to Vietnam, at Phnom Penh, we were
informed that we would go to China. The Vietnamese government had earlier
agreed with the Chinese government about this as we would encounter trouble in
Vietnam which was at war. From Guangzhou, we went to Beijing (Yu Zhuye
1992: 151-52; Chen Jian 2006: 201-203).

The suspicious behavior of Ibrahim Yaacob immediately after the September

30th Incident is also mentioned by Mustapha Hussain, Vice President of
KMM, and Fang Shan 方山 who will be referred to later. According to Mus-
tapha, a Balik Pulau MNP (Malay Nationalist Party) leader, Harun bin Haji

Putih told him in 1975 as follows [summarized by Author]:

During and after the Malaysia-Indonesia Confrontation, I stayed in Indonesia for
six years. Supported by President Sukarno, I continued with the independence
movement of the “Republic of Malaya” and declared its independence on radio.
When I met Ibrahim Yaacob, he chose to ignore me. After the fall of Sukarno,
Ibrahim Yaacob took me to a police station where I was detained (Mustapha Hus-
sain 1999: 455-57; 2005: 338-40).

238 Hara Fujio / Journal of Chinese Overseas 6 (2010) 216-249

A biography of Ibrahim Yaacob mentioned this encounter as below [summa-
rized by Author]:

During the “Confrontation,” Ibrahim Yaacob held a dinner reception. Some lead-
ers of “Republic of Malaya” and many Malay students studying in Indonesia were
invited. Harun, who was said to be “President of Republic,” came as well. With-
out stating anything about politics, Ibrahim Yaacob said, “I invited unacquainted
persons as well. Please eat a lot.” He intended to avoid a situation in which the
guests would be regarded as anti-Tunku and be put in an awkward position in
Malaysia (Bachtiar Djamily 1985: 184-85, 236).

On the relations between Ibrahim Yaacob and the PKI, Bachtiar Djamily, the
author of this biography, writes as follows [summarized by Author]:

After the coup attempt by the PKI by way of the September 30th Incident failed,
it became clear that Ibrahim Yaacob was neither a PKI member nor was he influ-
enced by the PKI. On the contrary it became obvious that he was an anti-com-
munist. Ever since he began his political activities, he had been consistently a
nationalist. When the “Confrontation” ended following the establishment of the
“New Order” regime in Indonesia, Ibrahim and his group staying in Jakarta joy-
fully celebrated it. This was because during the “Confrontation” neither war nor
bloodshed, which only communists and imperialists would have been pleased to
see, took place (Bachtiar Djamily 1985: 236-37).

According to the same author, Ibrahim Yaacob was close not only to Adam
Malik, Foreign Minister in the Suharto cabinet, but also to Suharto himself
with whom Ibrahim fought the guerrilla war in the mountainous districts of
Central Java from 1947 to 1949 (Bachtiar Djamily 1985: 204).

I cannot judge whether Ibrahim Yaacob suddenly changed his position
because of the September 30th Incident, or because he was consistently an
anti-communist. Nonetheless, the biography quoted above also mentions that
he assumed the mandate of Partai Rakyat Brunei (People’s Party of Brunei) in
Indonesia (Bachtiar Djamily 1985: 18). Undeniably he had close connections
with various anti-Malaysia elements during the “Confrontation” period.

At the end of this section, I will examine how the Central Committee of the
Malayan National Liberation League perceived this event. The People’s Daily of
China dated 31 December 1965 reprinted the statement of the MNLL Cen-
tral Committee dated 5 December that had been carried in the December
issue of the Malayan Monitor 馬來亞箴言, the organ of the MNLL issued in
Beijing. A summary of the article entitled “A strong protest against the hostile
activities of the rightists of Indonesia” is given below:

On the night of 17 November, Indonesian soldiers intruded into the Representa-
tive Office of the MNLL in Indonesia. They arrested four members of the office

Hara Fujio / Journal of Chinese Overseas 6 (2010) 216-249 239

and took away its assets. Their raid was carried out in a strictly secret way. This is
a part of the wicked conspiracy perpetrated by the Indonesian rightist clique in
collusion with [such betrayers of Malaya as Ibrahim Yaacob. . . . Author’s emphasis].
Pretending to promote the independence movement of Malaya, these traitors to
our country are trying all possible means to destroy the Malayan people’s national
liberation movement. In their unimaginably wicked statement, they slandered us
claiming that the Representative Office had “connections” with the so called Sep-
tember 30th Movement. It is not by accident that, as if unable to wait any longer,
such reactionary newspapers in Jakarta as Api Pancasila (Fire of 5 Principles)
reported this betrayers’ statement on 21 and 22 of October.

Our ROI was officially established and obtained perfect permission and sup-
port from both the Indonesian government and its people. We were welcomed by
the government offices, government officials, various mass organizations as well as
political parties. Representatives of various organizations attended many kinds of
rallies held under the auspices of the ROI.

This raid and arrest betray the Indonesian people’s wish and the Indonesian
government’s declared policy. Lodging the strongest protest against the Indone-
sian government, the MNLL demands the immediate release of the four ROI
members, an assurance about their safety and freedom for their activities and the
immediate return of their assets. We appeal to peoples of the world to support our
just demand.

Had Ibrahim Yaacob clearly shown his anti-communist viewpoint from the
very beginning of Sudin’s request for his cooperation, he would not have been
accused of being a betrayer and an informer. It seems difficult for one to insist
that his position was consistent.

Activities after the Closure of the Representative Office

Except for the four members of the ROI who were deported from Indonesia,
scores of other MCP members who were staying in Indonesia secretly contin-
ued their work there. They were to secretly leave again for China and southern
Thailand by the late 1970s. As the PKI had totally been annihilated through
the September 30th Incident, there was no longer any possibility for them to
obtain any support from it.

Circumstances surrounding the remaining leaders and their footprints after
the closure of the ROI will be analyzed here. According to Eu Chooi Yip,
except for a few who left the movement due to illness, all the other MCP
members concerned completed their respective tasks and left Indonesia (Chen
Jian 2006: 192).

(1) Leading Members after the Closure of the Representative Office
After the four ROI members were arrested, Fang Chuang Pi, who had returned
to Indonesia from Singapore, took charge of the MCP’s activities in Indonesia.
According to C. C. Chin, Fang secretly visited China for seven days to discuss

240 Hara Fujio / Journal of Chinese Overseas 6 (2010) 216-249

with Chin Peng at the end of 1965. It resulted in important decisions con-
cerning the policy of struggle to be implemented in Singapore and the new
tasks of the MCP. There the former policy line was abandoned as a “right-
inclined conservative line” and an “extremely left policy” (extra-parliamentary
struggle line) was adopted. This new policy stipulated that the parliamentary
struggle was an illusion and, “by mobilizing the masses, we must extensively
deploy street demonstrations.” After Fang’s return to Indonesia, influenced by
the Cultural Revolution of China, the “struggle, criticize and reform” 斗批改
movement took place in the MCP Singapore branch in Indonesia in 1966.
Zhang Jian (Huang Minqiang), Zhan Zhongqian and Zhang Taiqiang (張泰強)
were criticized in the movement.

Fang visited China again to meet Chin Peng at the end of 1970. After
Fang’s return, “struggle, criticize and reform” was changed to the “rectifica-
tion” 整風 movement and a new policy of “going back to the homeland and
moving northwards” 打回老家、動員北上 was carried out. To reach south-
ern Thailand through a long and difficult route, more than 50 leaders were to
leave Indonesia. Only several of them remained in Indonesia (Chen Jian 2006:
293-94). As mentioned earlier, Fang himself left Indonesia in the second half
of 1977 and reached southern Thailand.

(2) Footsteps of the Other Cadres Afterwards

a) Wong Soon Fong notes in his memoir as follows [summarized by Author]:

Even before the September 30th Incident, Chan Sun Wing and I were unable to
openly work as our faces were well known. We concealed ourselves in a comrade’s
house. After the Incident, we left this house and wandered from place to place,
took up such jobs as worker in a soap factory, fisherman [while catching fish, they
tried to establish contacts to return home. . . . Author’s note], poultry farmer and so
on. Many comrades also moved from Jakarta either to suburban areas or to the
outer islands. Though the Party decided to recall its members to Malaya after
September 30th, the returnees could not open an escape route. Two main cadres
were arrested. Those comrades who had been criticized due to the influence of the
Cultural Revolution were hesitant to return. Wong and Zhang Jian were in charge
of the last departure preparations. Using a fake passport bought for 200,000
Rupiah [if officially applied, it would have cost merely 25,000 Rupiah. . . . Author’s
note]. Wong himself left Indonesia at the end of 1978. Through Hong Kong and
Macau, he reached China in 1979. Encouraged by Ah Yang 阿焔, representative
of the MCP Central Committee in China, and Huang Wei 黄薇, member of the
External Liaison Bureau 中央對外聯部 of the Central Committee of the Chi-
nese Communist Party (CCP), Wong reached the base in southern Thailand
(Huang 2007: 93-121).

b) Fang Mingwu, who had led the labor movement in Singapore in the 1960s,
sailed to Indonesia in order to avoid arrest by the Lee Kuan Yew government. He

Hara Fujio / Journal of Chinese Overseas 6 (2010) 216-249 241

moved to southern Thailand in the 1970s and joined the assault unit 突撃隊
directed by Zhang Zuo 張佐.27

c) Wei Gengchun, who was born in 1929, told the author as follows:

After participating in the underground activities in 1952, I worked in Penang
from 1955 and then in Singapore from 1957. Following news of mass arrests, my
wife and I moved to Indonesia in mid-1962. We lived in various places such as
Jakarta, Bandung, Bogor, Sukabumi (West Java), Medan, Teluk Betong (Sumatra)
and Riau Islands for a few years respectively. We became fake Indonesian citizens.
In order to live, I worked as fisherman, poultry farmer, member of the advertise-
ment staff in a newspaper company and so on. While the initial funds were sup-
plied by the unit, a portion of our earnings was sent to the unit. Though I knew
that Li Bing 李兵 (alias Fang Chuang Pi) was a liaison officer, I could not contact
him. Though leaders were in contact with the PKI, we were not.

Using an Indonesian passport arranged by the organization, I left Indonesia in
1979. Through Hong Kong and Macau, I entered China in 1980 and reached the
base in southern Thailand in March of the same year.28

d) Fang Shan (alias Li Jimu 李其木, born in 1938) testified as follows:

Soon after graduating from the Faculty of History and Geography of Nanyang
University in 1962, I joined underground activities. In 1963, immediately after
my marriage, I moved to Indonesia together with Fang Chuang Pi in accordance
with a directive of the Party. I studied at a commercial school and PKI’s “People’s
University,” and published a newspaper called “Zhongcheng Bao” 忠誠報. I once
worked as a Chinese language instructor of President Sukarno.

Ibrahim Yaacob co-operated with us in the “Anti-British Photo Exhibition.”
After the fall of Sukarno, however, he abandoned his principles and became hos-
tile to us.

The September 30th Incident did not affect our activities much, because they
had been carried out underground all the while. I worked as a hawker, fisherman
and so on in Jakarta, Bandung as well as Medan. Fake identity cards could easily
be obtained. I possessed 65 identity cards. I joined the MCP in 1975.

Although we expected that liberation of South Vietnam would prove the
“Domino Theory,” yet the situation did not turn for the better at all. On the
contrary, the Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia made the “Socialist Camp” van-
ish like mist. Estranged from Vietnam, we were forced to restructure our plan. In
1977, I was instructed to go to China. I sailed for China at the end of 1978 and
worked at the “Revolutionary Radio of Malaya.” In 1981, using an Indonesian
passport, I flew to Bangkok through Manila. Then, by train and automobile, I
arrived at the base in southern Thailand in the same year. My wife also reached me
there at the end of 1983.29

27 Interview with Mr. Fang Mingwu at 9th Princes Village (First Peace Village) on 3 Septem-
ber 2003.

28 Interview with Mr. Wei Gengchun at 9th Princes Village (First Peace Village) on 3 Septem-
ber 2003.

29 Interview with Mr. Fang Shan on 8 September 2005 in Penang and on 6 October 2006 in

242 Hara Fujio / Journal of Chinese Overseas 6 (2010) 216-249

In short, hoping that favorable circumstances might emerge one day, the MCP
members patiently carried out their activities. Unrealized hopes for interna-
tional co-operation brought their activities in Indonesia to an end.　

Relationship of the Two Parties Viewed from Their Official Documents

I would like to analyze their relationship based on the official letters of both
Parties as well as on the speeches of their top leaders.

Malaysia

On 19 March 1963 the People’s Daily carried an obviously anti-Malaysia report
for the first time. It was an introduction to a speech by Aidit, Chairman of the
PKI. On the following day, 20 March, anti-Malaysia activities of the leaders of
Malayan opposition parties such as the Socialist Front of Malaya and Parti
Islam SeMalaya were reported. From then on, the People’s Daily frequently
carried fierce “Crush Malaysia” speeches by President Sukarno as well as by
Aidit until the September 30th Incident.30

Though fewer than the reports on the struggle by the Indonesians, criticism
by the Malayan Monitor (organ paper of the Representative Office of the
MNLL in China) directed at “Malaysia” were also reported on 8 October
1963, 9 April, 17 July 1964, 4, 8 February 1965. Criticism by the MCP itself
against “Malaysia,” however, was reported only once in this period, in the
People’s Daily dated 5 October 1964 which reported the congratulatory mes-
sage (dated 15 September) of the MCP to the CCP Central Committee to
commemorate the 15th anniversary of the People’s Republic of China. This
message said, “Recently, in the struggle of the people of our country, North
Kalimantan and Indonesia, against the product of new colonialism, “Malay-
sia,” China firmly stands on our side. She reveals the conspiracy designed by
Britain and supported by the United States.” Though the MCP Central Com-
mittee announced its opposition to Malaysia and support for Sukarno in the
“Statement on ‘Malaysia’ ” dated 20 September 1963 (Chin and Hack 2004:
275), the People’s Daily somehow had not reported it.

Kuala Lumpur. Wong Soon Fong also states that they held an “MCP’s Anti-Japanese, Anti-
British Photo Exhibition” during their period of legal activity (Huang 2007: 95).

30 Such articles were carried in 1964 on the following dates: 3, 4, 24, 26 January, 10, 12, 19
March, 14, 30 April, 8, 11, 22, 23, 28 May, 2, 4, June, 13, 22 July, 18 August, 20 September,
16, 18, 19, 23 November, 6, 7, 9, 10 December.

Hara Fujio / Journal of Chinese Overseas 6 (2010) 216-249 243

According to Chin Peng’s memoir, the main reasons why they were opposed
to Malaysia were that by forming Malaysia Lee Kuan Yew maneuvered to
smash the MCP, and that Malaysia would favor the Malays to the disadvan-
tage of the Chinese. Chin Peng, at the same time, was skeptical about Sukar-
no’s policy of dispatching volunteer forces to Malaya (Chin Peng 2003: 437,
438, 461-63).

It may be assumed that because the MCP maintained a certain distance
from the “Confrontation Policy” either of the PKI or of Sukarno, it did not
completely throw itself into the turmoil of the “Confrontation” and instead,
secretly carried out its underground activities.

Review of Official Documents

(1) Letters from the MCP to the PKI

The congratulatory letter of the MCP Central Committee (consisting of about
400 Chinese characters) which was dated 22 June 1954 and sent to the 5th
National Congress of the PKI, stated, “Whenever Indonesian people obtain
excellent result in their struggle to win national independence, democracy and
freedom, Malayan people, who are now building up their struggle against
British colonialists, are greatly encouraged” (Shijie Zhishi Chubanshe 1960:
52-53).

Chairman Musa Ahmad and Secretary-General Chin Peng of the MCP
sent a congratulatory letter to the 6th PKI National Congress in August 1959
under a joint signature. The summary of the letter which consisted of about
3,300 Chinese characters is as follows:

Owing to creative application of Marxism and Leninism by the PKI Central
Committee headed by Comrade Aidit, the Anti-Imperialist National United
Front of Indonesian people has been expanded and strengthened day by day.
Repeated conspiracies and armed rebellion by the US, Britain and Holland and
their followers have been crushed. Imperialists and their running dogs harbor
delusions to split this United Front and isolate the PKI. This Congress will con-
tribute to strengthen and expand the Anti-Imperialist National United Front and
to further isolate the bigoted forces.

Independence of Federation of Malaya in August 1957 was not genuine.
Though the Malayan government slanders the MCP as an agent of foreign coun-
tries, it is the MCP which is a genuine patriot. Singapore’s autonomy won on
3 June 1963 was a victory of Singaporean people. The result of the first Legislative
Assembly election [overwhelming victory of the People’s Action Party in this election
led to formation of the Lee Kuan Yew government. . . . Author’s note] showed the
firm anti-imperialist will of the Singaporean people. The MCP appeals to form a

244 Hara Fujio / Journal of Chinese Overseas 6 (2010) 216-249

Patriotic National United Front that unifies all the patriotic forces including
patriots inside the Alliance Party [Coalition ruling party of Malaya at that time. …
Author’s note].

The Malayan government makes Malaya into an activity base for the imperial-
ists who try to overthrow the Indonesian government (Sjijie Zhishi Chubanshe
1960: 68-72).

The letter of 1959 is much longer and detailed than that of 1954. It also indi-
cates closer relations between the two Parties. That might have something to
do with the MCP’s “Patriotic United Front” plan in which it sought negotia-
tion with the Tunku’s government. The MCP might have thought that it could
learn from PKI’s participation in the government based on the united front
policy. It is also interesting that the MCP reconfirmed its positive evaluation
of Lee Kuan Yew at this moment. No other letters sent from the MCP to the
PKI are available.

(2) Letters from the Leaders of the PKI to the MCP

As no letters sent from the MCP to the PKI are available, letters sent from the
top leaders of the PKI including its Chairman Aidit to the MCP and the
MNLL are analyzed here.

A top leader of the 10th Regiment of the Malayan National Liberation
Army (MNLA) writes in his memoir: In the 10th Regiment, its members
studied Kaum Tani Menghancurkan Syaitan Desa (Farmers Annihilate Devils
in Rural Areas) written by Aidit as well as Mao Zedong’s works translated into
the Malay language. This book was very useful for an understanding of the
objectives of the farmers’ struggle (Abdullah C.D. 2005: 237).

Aidit seems to have enjoyed particularly high prestige among Malay mem-
bers of the MCP in the early 1960s. A congratulatory message that Aidit sent
to the MCP Central Committee commemorating MCP’s 35th anniversary on
30 April 1965 [summarized by Author] is as follows:

In order for Malayan people to win national independence, the MCP is carrying
out a heroic struggle. Armed struggle of Malayan people and the MCP is an
inseparable part of the world people. Your struggle concretely contributes to Indone-
sian people’s “Mengganyang (Crush) Malaysia struggle” [Author’s emphasis] and
constitutes one of the footholds of the newly emerging Asian forces. The armed
struggle you are embracing now reveals that peaceful co-existence expressed by
the modern revisionists is an irresponsible illusion.31

31 People’s Daily, 1 May 1965.

Hara Fujio / Journal of Chinese Overseas 6 (2010) 216-249 245

In his congratulatory message sent to the Central Committee of the MNLL in
June 1965 to commemorate the 17th anniversary of the waging of the armed
struggle, Chairman Aidit made the following appeal [summarized by
Author]:

Malayan people’s past and present struggle directly contributes to Indonesian people’s
struggle to crush “Malaysia,” a product of the new colonialists [Author’s emphasis].
Malayan people’s struggle will win before long and, replacing bankrupted “Malay-
sia,” a free, fully independent and peaceful Malaya will emerge. Let us unite fur-
ther firmly and oppose the common enemy, the old and new colonialists headed
by the US imperialists.32

It could be interpreted that “Crush Malaysia” is a struggle of Indonesia and
that the MCP’s struggle merely “contributes” to it. The PKI might have
accepted that the MCP did not keep pace with Sukarno and the PKI in the
“Crush Malaysia” struggle. After the PKI was annihilated as a result of the
September 30th Incident and its surviving top leaders obtained political asy-
lum in China, “Voice of Malayan Revolution” announced that two letters had
been sent from the PKI to the Central Committee of the MCP as shown
below:

– Congratulatory letter sent from the then Secretary-General of the PKI,
Jusuf Adjitorop, to commemorate the commencement of the Anti-British
struggle (dated 20 June 1978):

Led by Marxism, Leninism and Mao Zedong Thought, our Parties are hand in
hand carrying out Anti-Imperialism, Anti-Colonialism and Anti-Hegemonism
struggle. 33

– Congratulatory letter sent from the PKI Central Committee to commemo-
rate the 50th anniversary of the foundation of the MCP (dated 29 April
1980):

The MCP carries out armed struggle against imperialism, colonialism, reactionary
cliques of Hussein Onn [Malaysian Prime Minister…Author’s note] and of Lee
Kuan Yew [Singaporean Prime Minister . . . Author’s note] and recently becomes
a nucleus of the Malayan people’s struggle against the hegemony of Soviet
Union and of Vietnam. The PKI and Indonesian people resolutely support these
struggles.34

32 Ibid. 22 June 1965.
33 “Voice of Malayan Revolution,” 1 July 1978. Based on Daily Report, 7 July1978.
34 “Voice of Malayan Revolution,” 1 May, 1980. Based on Daily Report, 6 May, 1980.

246 Hara Fujio / Journal of Chinese Overseas 6 (2010) 216-249

From here we can assume that, following changes in the international situa-
tion, more precisely following changes in Chinese perceptions of international
politics, the priority of both Parties’ struggles shifted from their respective
internal reactionary governments to the hegemony posed by the Soviet Union
and Vietnam. In the case of the MCP, this shift was to bring about the Peace
Treaty with the Malaysian government nine years later.

Conclusion

Leaders of the PKI such as Alimin, Sutan Djenain and Mokhtaruddin Lasso
had been engaged in guiding the MCP, KMM and the MNP since the pre-
WWII days through the early postwar period. They played a big role in
expanding the MCP’s influence among the Malays. These PKI leaders, how-
ever, did not necessarily follow the mainstream PKI line after returning to
Indonesia. On the other hand, recently published memoirs of the MCP are
greatly appreciative of them. A kind of distance between the MCP and the
PKI might be discerned here.

Several other PKI members who had played an important role in both
the MCP and the MNP also went back to Indonesia to participate in the
War of Independence. In Indonesia they seemed to remain interested in devel-
opments in Malaya. Some of them supported the activities of the MCP such
as the Representative Office of the Malayan National Liberation League in
Indonesia. Some others remained in Malaya to participate in the armed strug-
gle and died in it. A volunteer corps organized by the Central Committee of
the MCP was sent to Indonesia to participate in her war of independence
(usually called the Revolutionary War in the MCP documents). Many Malay
leftists who were usually members both of the MNP and the MCP went to
Indonesia to support or participate in its war of independence against the
Dutch.

After Emergency was declared in June 1948, no PKI members could pen-
etrate into Malaya. Since the early 1950s when underground activities became
difficult in Malaya, especially in southern Malaya including Singapore, at least
60-odd MCP personnel sailed to Indonesia and carried out underground
activities but scarcely contacted the PKI. When the Indonesian government
and the PKI proclaimed the “Confrontation” policy against Malaysia in the
early 1960s, the relationship between the MCP and the PKI became closer.
Through the good offices of the PKI, the Indonesian government approved
the establishment of the Representative Office of the MNLL in Indonesia in
June 1965. The period of almost four months, until the closure of the ROI

Hara Fujio / Journal of Chinese Overseas 6 (2010) 216-249 247

due to the 30 September 1965 Incident, was the only legal and open activity
period of the MCP in Indonesia. The ROI cooperated with former President
of the KMM, Ibrahim Yaacob, who had fled to Indonesia immediately after
the end of the Pacific War and continued to be involved in Malayan politics in
one way or another. But it is noteworthy that the closure of the ROI of the
MNLL by the new Indonesian government after the September 30 Incident
was said to be due to Ibrahim Yaacob’s information. It may be necessary to
evaluate Ibrahim Yaacob, who has been regarded as the most important leader
of one of the two nationalist schools, from a new perspective in light of the
foregoing.

The remaining underground activists had also left Indonesia for China or
for the bases in southern Thailand by the end of the 1970s. MCP’s activities
in Indonesia thus came to an end.

Connections between the MCP and the PKI are proven to have been much
more wide-ranging and multifaceted than had been conjectured so far. Judg-
ing from various references to such connections in the memoirs of the MCP
leaders, it seems that they had no intention to minimize their closeness to
Indonesia. Before these memoirs became available, researchers did not inte-
grate the three entities, that is, the PKI, the MCP and the MNP. That might
be a reason why their connections were not duly perceived.

Though both of the PKI and the MCP belonged to the enthusiastic pro-
CCP radical group during the Sino-Soviet disputes, their relationship was not
always very close. Except for the ROI officials, the MCP-related personnel
carried out underground activities, scarcely contacting the PKI even when it
was quite strong and influential as one of the ruling coalition parties of the
Indonesian government. The MCP seemed to have been reluctant to whole-
heartedly support the PKI’s as well as Sukarno’s Confrontation Policy toward
Malaysia. It cannot be easily assumed that the MCP was suspicious about
overwhelmingly pribumi-dominated Indonesia. Though the South Malayan
Bureau of the MCP had been located in Indonesia to lead the movement in
South Malaya (especially Singapore) since 1961, its members seem to have
never consulted with the PKI about its strategic policies. Besides those facts,
and in contrast with the positive evaluation by the MCP of those PKI leaders
who had guided the MCP and the leftist movements in Malaya, the PKI
seemed to almost ignore them. Judging from those facts, both parties seemed
not to fully rely on or trust each other. In this regard, however, due to the
unavailability of relevant official documents, the author was unable to ascer-
tain their actual positions. It seems further studies are needed.

248 Hara Fujio / Journal of Chinese Overseas 6 (2010) 216-249

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