MALAYA: A New Nation

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The Ever-Present Shadow. The Chinese, who make up nearly all of Malaya's 1,800 Red guerrillas, are also at the bottom of Abdul Rahman's other chief headache—the threat of racial strife in Malaya. Of the new nation's 6,000,000 citizens, 49% are Malay and nearly 38% are Chinese. (The remaining 13% are mostly Indians and Pakistanis.) Abdul Rahman, one of whose adopted daughters is Chinese, has a long record of successful political cooperation with Malaya's Chinese, and the Ministers of Finance and Commerce in his new Cabinet are Chinese. But like all other Malays, Abdul Rahman lives in fear that one day his easygoing, largely illiterate people will be swallowed up by the country's more aggressive, economically powerful Chinese.

Adding to this fear is the ever-present shadow of the heavily Chinese crown colony of Singapore, which handles 75% of Malaya's business, and is separated from the new nation only by a half-mile-long causeway. Singapore, which is due to get local autonomy in 1958, would like to become part of Malaya—a prospect which leaves the Tengku at best lukewarm. Singapore's energetic Chief Minister Lim Yew Hock (who a fortnight ago ordered the arrest of 35 of the colony's top Communists and offered paid one-way trips to Red China for anyone who wants to go) has done an effective job of combatting the Reds in Singapore. But if Singapore's 1,250,000 Chinese become Malayan citizens, the Malays would be a minority in their own country. "It is not our intention to place a barrier at the Singapore causeway," says Abdul Rahman, adding hastily "until we have worked this question out."