57 Facts About Chin Peng

Chin Peng, born Ong Boon Hua, was a Malayan communist politician, guerrilla leader, and revolutionary, who was the leader and commander of the Communist Party of Malaya and the Malayan National Liberation Army.

Chin Peng joined the CPM in 1941, and quickly involved himself in local party committees and labour unions in Perak.

Chin Peng was awarded the Order of the British Empire.

Chin Peng's actions led to the revocation of his OBE.

Chin Peng was however not permitted to return, and Chin died in exile in Bangkok, Thailand in 2013; he was 88.

Chin Peng is considered one of the most controversial political figures in Malayan history.

Chin Peng's detractors condemned him and the MNLA for committing numerous atrocities during the Emergency, and characterised him as an ideological fanatic and terrorist.

Chin Peng was the last surviving postwar revolutionary leader to have successfully fought for independence from colonialism in Asia.

Chin Peng was born Ong Boon Hua on 21 October 1924 into a middle-class family in the small seaside town of Sitiawan, Dindings, which at the time was a part of the Straits Settlements.

Chin Peng's father went to live in Sitiawan in 1920, and set up a bicycle, tire, and spare motor parts business with the help of a relative from Singapore, known as Ong Lock Cho.

Chin Peng was in charge of anti-Japanese activities at his school, and was reportedly a supporter of Sun Yat-sen.

Chin Peng planned to go to Yan'an, the renowned communist base in China but was persuaded to remain in Malaya and take on heavier responsibilities in the newly formed Malayan Communist Party.

In late 1939, when Chin Peng was in the 4th year of his secondary school education, his school announced that the senior middle section was to be closed due to lack of funds.

Chin Peng decided to continue his education in the Methodist-run Anglo-Chinese Continuation School, which operated in English, because it provided a good cover for his underground activities.

Chin Peng did not want to have to move to Singapore to continue with his education in Chinese.

Chin Peng left the school "for fear of British harassment" after just 6 months.

Chin Peng was now focused fully on his political activities and became, from that point on, a full-time revolutionary.

Chin Peng became Ipoh District committee member of the party.

Chin Peng rose to prominence during World War II when many Chinese Malayans took to the jungle to fight a guerrilla war against the Japanese.

Chin Peng became the liaison officer between the MPAJA and the British military in Southeast Asia.

However, Lee Siow Chin Peng was captured not long after while travelling to a meeting that was to be held in Singapore.

Chin Peng made contact with the group on 30 September 1943.

Chin Peng was active in his support for the British stay-behind troops but had no illusions about their failure to protect Malaya against the Japanese.

In recognition of his service during the war, Chin Peng was awarded an Order of the British Empire, a mention in despatches and two campaign medals by Britain.

Chin Peng was elected the Secretary-General of the Communist Party of Malaya after the previous leader Lai Tek, had turned out to be an agent for both the British and the Japanese and had denounced the leadership of the party to the Japanese secret police.

Chin Peng denied it, stating that the conference argued against such a move.

Chin Peng estimated it would be a year or two before the British took actions against the CPM, leaving them ample time to prepare for a guerrilla war.

Chin Peng again claimed that he was not aware of the murders at the time, although he approved of the later killing of the plantation managers who he claimed were harsh and cruel towards farmworkers.

Many Singaporean historians and anti-communists allege that Chin Peng ordered the killings.

Chin Peng claimed he had no prior knowledge of the plot.

Chin Peng added that he barely escaped arrest, losing his passport in the process, and he lost touch with the party for a couple of days.

Chin Peng became the most wanted man of the British government, with the government offering a reward of $250,000 for his capture.

Chin Peng admitted they had wrongly assumed that the people would be willing support his men, as they had done during World War II.

The only 'support' Chin Peng recalled obtaining was the encouraging news that Mao's guerrillas had defeated Chiang Kai-shek's well-equipped and numerically superior KMT army in 1949.

Chin Peng was aware of this as he nearly starved several times during those twelve years.

Chin Peng would later admit in an interview in 1999 that this directive was a mistake as it allowed the British to press on with their attacks on the MNLA, whom they correctly assessed to be quite demoralised by then.

Chin Peng described Siao as the CPM's 'insurance policy' in the event the central committee was eliminated.

On 24 September 1955, Chin Peng wrote to Tunku Abdul Rahman offering to negotiate peace.

The first day of the talks did not go well, as Chin Peng wanted the CPM to be recognised as a legal party again, or for the leaders and members of the MNLA to at least be allowed to regain their freedom of movement and not face any legal persecution or imprisonment.

Chin Peng again argued freedom of thought and choice must be recognised by the Malayan government if the new nation was to survive past its independence, as the people should have the right to decide which political path the nation should take rather than having that choice be decided by a select few in the government.

Chin Peng claimed it was his challenge to Tunku Abdul Rahman that hastened the independence of Malaya.

Chin Peng's performance impressed the Colonial Office enough to grant Malaya independence.

In 1956, Chin Peng wrote to Tunku Abdul Rahman offering to resume negotiations.

Chin Peng then moved to south Thailand with the remnants of his forces during the latter part of the Emergency due to pressure from the Malayan security forces, which by 1952 totalled over 32,000 regular troops in Malaya, about three-fifths of whom were Europeans from the United Kingdom, New Zealand and Australia.

Chin Peng would remain in Beijing for the next 29 years and the party would not lay down its arms until 1989.

Chin Peng welcomed Prime Minister of Singapore Lee Kuan Yew and its leading political figure since independence from Malaysia, in a visit to Beijing.

Chin Peng recalled that Deng had not bothered to meet him since then.

Those sympathetic to Chin Peng tend to portray the violence perpetrated by the CPM as defensive, while right-wing opponents tend to portray it as aggressive and unethical.

Chin Peng was not permitted to return to Malaysia after the 1989 Hat Yai Peace Accords and continued his exile in Thailand.

Chin Peng did visit neighbouring Singapore, where he gave lectures at the National University of Singapore in 2004, using purposes of academic research as his reason to gain visitation permission from the Singaporean government.

Chin Peng's application was rejected by the high court on 25 July 2005.

In June 2008, Chin Peng again lost his bid to return to Malaysia when the Court of Appeal upheld an earlier ruling that compelled him to show identification papers to prove his citizenship.

Chin Peng maintained that his birth certificate was seized by the police during a raid in 1948.

In November 2009, Chin Peng issued an apology to the victims and their family members for the atrocities committed by the CPM.

Chin Peng died of cancer at the age of 88 at a private hospital in Bangkok, with only his 50-year-old niece by his side, on the morning of 16 September 2013, the 50th anniversary of the establishment of Malaysia.

Chin Peng co-authored his story with Singapore-based writers and publishers Ian Ward, who was formerly the Southeast Asia correspondent for the London conservative newspaper, The Daily Telegraph, and Ward's wife Norma Miraflor.

In 2006, a documentary film about Chin Peng was made called The Last Communist.