Word: malayas
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...Korea, Indo-China, Malaya and Burma, the traveler said, the cold war was "hot." Mao Tse-tung's Peking government was using Hitler's technique-threatening reprisals against relatives in China unless Chinese in other Asiatic countries showed their loyalty to the Reds. The massing of Red troops along Asiatic borders was often enough to paralyze any incipient anti-Communist policy. Transplanted Chinese populations, Chinese-language newspapers, even wealthy Chinese were going over to Communism in wholesale lots...
...Malaya (MGM) squanders Spencer Tracy, James Stewart and a name-heavy supporting cast in the kind of adventuresome folderol that lesser studios crank out regularly on small, starless budgets. Such high-priced talent probably seemed worth using while the story was still an idea based on an authentic wartime scheme: the smuggling of rubber out of Japanese-held Malaya. But the picture beats the basic idea into pulp fiction...
...point that "Malaya" gets across is that greed has no nationality but Americans have. Jimmy Stewart and Spencer Tracy play two American nondescripts, one a newspaperman and the other a convict. They are sent to Singapore to steal rubber from the Japs during the war. The rubber stealing business makes a reasonably good Terry-and-the-Pirates adventure story; but the obscure transition by Tracy and Stewart from riff-raff to flag-bearers makes the whole plot implausible and over-sentimental...
Despite Blimpish resistance in the civil service, MacDonald is pushing educational and economic plans (e.g., more village schools and a five-year plan to integrate rubber-rich Malaya's lopsided economy). He has had notable results in bringing together the federation's rival Chinese (1,884,534) and Malay (2,427,834) population, mainly through the Communities Liaison Committee, in which leaders of both peoples talk over common problems of citizenship and economic opportunity...
...Back Up. If the MacDonald plans work out in Malaya, the chances are better for his greater plan in Southeast Asia. The Commissioner has organized regional conferences on rice and fisheries, lent out British experts in agriculture, mining and other technical fields. It has cost money. In the past three years Britain has spent ?750 million in southern Asia, including India. British resources are strained, and yet the biggest effort still lies ahead. "It's got to be the real thing," warns MacDonald...