I dont think there are any real transferable lessons from Malaya. In no particular order.

1) As has been stated youre dealing with an ethnic minority, the Chinese. Within that ethnic minority you have the division between Kuomintang, people who just want to make a living, as well as the Communists. So youre dealing with a minority of a minority. The Malays are already onside, the Indians arent going to be making any trouble, so you already have the bulk of the population onside - and committed to your plans once independence has been promised.

2) You have the colonial adminstration. These are people who know whos, who and have a rough gist what to say, who to bribe, what to do etc from experience. Thanks to the way its set up you can effectively have one man in charge of it all and making things happen. The imperial system cannot be replicated and with with warfare today effectively being a coalition effort, beside NGOs and other third parties traipsing around the place and doing their own thing, your plan be damned.

3) The Korean war boom effectively saved the Brits bacon by generating huge demand for rubber and tin the mainstay of the Malay economy, providing people with boom time wages and generally improving everyones lot besides providing the cash strapped government with much needed revunues to provide the squatter chinese most likely to become communist with new villages and land titles under the settlement program.

4) The key population was small and in the virtual middle of nowhere and since the media was strictly controlled you could do resettlement programs and massive population control such as controlling food supplies and the like.

5) The only thing I think you can take away from it is the now legendary statement about 'hearts and minds'.

What do you think?