Actually, in Malaya the British -- correctly -- first went after the CTs and removed their ability to terrorize minds; then they terrorized the Malays and the Chinese civilians not playing CT by virtually eliminating Civil Rights and moving the majority of them into 'New Villages.' There was no winning of hearts and the minds involved were coerced, not coaxed.

The 'hearts and minds' tag line was introduced but the iron fist behind that velvet glove was what 'won' the COIN war. About 40K Commonwealth Troops and over half that number of British and Malay Police plus the concentration camps that were the New Villages fighting a max of 6-8K CTs and killing well over half of them from 1951 until late 1956 swung it -- hearts and minds were little if any involved.

The Malays were the people who wanted independence. Yet they were not involved in the insurgency to almost any extent. The Chinese were making money so mostly, they weren't big on independence. Few of them followed the CT line.

Chin Peng just used 'independence' as an excuse and in an attempt to replace impending, promised and on schedule independent but majority Malay rule with a Communist government headed by Chinese. Thus to say that the British won Malay hearts and minds when the Chinese were the insurgents is an obvious misnomer

The British and Malays then offered an amnesty to the CTs -- and a pretty sweeping one at that --and by late '56, the insurgency was pretty well whipped. Independence, proposed and effectively promised in 1948 at the formation of the Federation of Malaya and to be effective in 10 years finally came on 31 Aug 57, a year early but Malaysia as it exists today wasn't really formed until 1963.

I said it before and I'll say it again:

""Winning hearts and minds anywhere is a myth...That's the myth that needs to be dispelled and that's a lesson we did not learn in Viet Nam.""

""People will act in their perceived self interest and they will follow their heart -- but they will not let you win that heart. Nor do you need to...""

That opinion by me does not of course preclude others from using whatever terminology they wish. Even if they are wrong. Nor does that opinion obviate COIN techniques as espoused by most; it merely suggests that the effort be viewed realistically and not through idealistic prisms that can distort actions. That's the semantics part of it...

Words are important.