Immigration Control during the Malayan Emergency: Borders, Belonging and Citizenship, 1948–1960

During the Malayan Emergency, control of Malaya’s borders and the government’s ability to exclude undesirable elements from entering the territory were critical to the successful prosecution of its population control policy and the overall counter-insurgency campaign. This article examines how the British colonial administration used immigration barriers to deter potential threats, focusing on movement to and from the People’s Republic of China (PRC). Freedom of movement opened the Malayan door to Maoist communist infiltration, thus impeding the anti-insurgency campaign, but the implementation of ‘exceptional’ controls over the entry and re-entry of Chinese—even covering those who were locally born—produced a hostile public reaction within the Chinese population.