Chin Peng

Chin Peng (Chinese: 陳平; pinyin: Chén Píng), former OBE, (21 October 1924 – 16 September 2013) born Ong Boon Hua (Chinese: 王文華; pinyin: Wáng Wénhuá) was a long-time leader of the Malayan Communist Party (MCP). A determined anti-colonialist, he led the party's guerrilla insurgency in the Malayan Emergency, fighting against British and Commonwealth forces in an attempt to establish an independent communist state. After the MCP's defeat and subsequent Malayan independence, Chin waged a second campaign against Malaya and, after 1963, the new state of Malaysia in an attempt to replace its government with a communist one from exile, until signing a peace accord with the Malaysian government in 1989.

Chin Peng died at the age of 88, in Bangkok, Thailand. Prior to his death, he was living in exile in Thailand and had not been permitted to return to Malaysia contrary to one of the conditions of the 1989 peace agreement.

Biography

Early years

Chin Peng was born on 21 October 1924, into a middle-class family who gave him the name Ong Boon Hua, in the small seaside town of Sitiawan, in Perak state, Malaya. His father had come to the town in 1920 and started a bicycle, tyre and spare motor parts business with the help of a relative from Singapore. He attended a Chinese language school in Sitiawan. In 1937 he joined the Chinese Anti Enemy Backing Up Society (AEBUS), formed that year to send aid to China in response to Japan's aggression. According to Chin and Hack, he was not yet at that time a communist. He was in charge of anti-Japanese activities at his school. Initially a supporter of Sun Yat-sen, by early 1939 he had embraced Communism. He planned to go to Yan'an, the renowned communist base in China, but was persuaded to remain in Malaya and take on heavier responsibilities for the party there.