Precarious Peace

Lush rubber plantations and rich rice fields stretch mile after placid mile across rural Malaya. In the bustling cities, where a new school or factory opens almost daily, the economy booms along quietly. Last week, as the Federation of Malaya celebrated the fourth anniversary of independence, the tranquillity was briefly broken by countrywide lantern processions, garden parties and a parade of 24,000 schoolchildren at Kuala Lumpur's cavernous Merdeka (Independence) Stadium. Said Malaya's pragmatic Prime Minister Tengku Abdul Rahman, 58: "We can look back on these past four years of freedom with a genuine feeling of achievement and success."

Short years ago, marauding Communists turned placid plantations into armed camps, terrorized the countryside and threatened the emergence of Malaya as a free nation. But with British help, Malaya beat back the Red challenge. And thanks to its rich endowment of rubber and tin, the country's economy prospered. Last year Malaya topped all other nations in the production of both items (709,000 tons of rubber, 50,000 tons of tin), sent enough abroad, mostly to the U.S., to boost its foreign exchange reserves to a healthy $430 million. More than 95% of Malaya's children attend primary school, 100,000 automobiles ply a network of well-surfaced new roads, and Malaya's one airline (Malayan Airways Ltd.) has a perfect safety record after 14 years of operation. "We want to create the climate for good business," says Prime Minister Abdul Rahman. "We must raise the standard of living through economic development and achieve unity through education--and the hell with highfalutin political ideas.''

National Amity. Malaya's politicians have become practical and moderate out of bitter experience with extremes. After many weary years (1948-60) of fighting Communists, they are not dazzled by grandiose schemes of social change. Since the nation of 7,000,000 people is a patchwork of Malays (50%), Chinese (37%) and Indians (11%), all with divided loyalties, Malaya's leaders must compromise to make progress. They cannot afford the truculent nationalism of other emerging nations.

Chief worry is not the eleven states of the federation itself, but the neighboring autonomous state of Singapore, where Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew struggles to keep tenuous control over a noisy leftist opposition. To reinforce his moderates and keep Singapore out of the hands of the leftists, Lee has long sought to merge Singapore with stable Malaya. Until recently, Abdul Rahman has been wary, since the admission of Singapore's 1,250,000 Chinese (it has only 230,000 Malays) would overturn the present Malay majority within the federation. Abdul Rahman's long-range solution is to widen the federation to include the British-run territories of Sarawak, Brunei and North Borneo, whose predominantly non-Chinese populations would offset Singapore's Chinese, many of whom are openly proCommunist. But Lee, who has lost two by-elections in recent months, fortnight ago rushed to Kuala Lumpur to argue that his situation was deteriorating, and he cannot afford to wait until the Borneo territories make up their minds. Lee Kuan Yew returned to Singapore with Abdul Rahman's agreement "in principle" to a merger, with Singapore retaining local control of education and labor matters.

But the federation is the tail of a thrashing, turbulent continent. What happens in the vast north of Asia soon reverberates in Malaya. Though temporarily cowed, a few Communists still try to burrow their way into trade unions and political parties, waiting their chance to try a comeback. On Malaya's east coast fanatic Moslems in the Pan Malayan Islamic Party preach Malay race supremacy over the Chinese. Any downward plunge of the economy--always a possibility should there be a precipitous drop in world rubber or tin prices--would strengthen the extremists. "All this implies a state of balance so precarious.'' says U.S. Far Eastern Scholar Willard Hanna, "that one stumble might lead to disaster. The miracle is that so far no one has stumbled.''

Rural Resettlement. The Malayan government hopes to cure all its national ills with a heavy dose of economic planning. Among other things, it offers some of Southeast Asia's most generous tax concessions to foreign industries. Aluminium Ltd. of Canada is planning a $1,500,000 aluminum rolling plant at Petaling Jaya, Dunlop has begun construction of a $25,000,000 tire factory, and a Japanese Malayan iron and steel plant will be operating at Lunut by 1964. A massive hydroelectric plant, mostly financed by a $35.6 million loan from the World Bank, is under construction in the Cameron Highlands.

The government is moving even faster in the countryside. Hopeful that higher-yield rubber trees will enable Malayan rubber to compete with synthetics in the years ahead, Deputy Prime Minister Abdul Razak, 39, is trying to get 50,000 more acres a year under cultivation. To work the land, he is resettling farmers in self-contained communities, like those once organized for defense against Communist attacks. In one settlement in Bilut Valley, 483 Malay, Chinese and Indian families, most of whom have never farmed before, are living peacefully together, even though the Chinese breed pigs, which the Malays abhor, and the Malays slaughter cattle, which are sacred to the Indians. In two years the settlement has put 5,770 acres under cultivation, hopes to expand to 13,000. But often it takes seven years before a rubber tree yields rubber, so Bilut Valley will have seven lean years of waiting. But hopefully, the valley will then share in Malaya's years of plenty.

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