The arrival of Hugh Carleton Greene (brother of the novelist Graham) in Malaya in September 1950 to head the newly established Emergency Information Services marked the intensification of the Government’s emergency propaganda campaign. Greene argued that until now film propaganda in Malaya had been ‘comparatively neglected’ and secured approval for the large scale expansion of the Malayan Film Unit (Ramakrishna, 2002, 110). As well as staff increases, $380,000 was assigned for new film equipment, prompting an increase in the total number of films produced by the MFU. The unit produced 111 films in 1951, compared with 52 in 1950 and 19 for the whole of the previous three years. Of these 111 films, 24 were on subjects dealing with the Emergency (Annual Report, 1951, 184).

The Emergency Information Services also brought thirty more public address vans and travelling cinemas into service in 1951 ‘to tell the story of the Emergency to people who live even in the remotest parts of the country’ (Straits Times, 16 January 1951, 4). Many of these vans carried SEPs (Surrendered Enemy Personnel) who addressed local audiences, often within Chinese Resettlement Areas.  During a six-week tour of Johore, Negri Sembilan and Malacca during June and July 1951, they addressed 55,000 people and according to the Annual Report, ‘met with considerable success’ (Ramakrishna, 2002, 110).

Alex Josey, the Controller of Emergency Broadcasting, outlined the ways in which these units would now operate. ‘Several of these units, which are staffed entirely by Asians, will travel permanently on the bigger Malayan rivers addressing and showing films to the Malay villagers. Others with Indian field officers work from rubber estate

to estate, others in the new Chinese resettlement villages’ (Josey, 1952, 115). A New Life was available in English and Hakka (films were more often in English, Malay, Mandarin and Tamil), suggesting that the film was aimed directly at the rural Chinese, many of who would be facing resettlement (Catalogue of Films Made by the Malayan Film Unit, 1953, 44). The film was subsequently dubbed in Burmese in 1954, one of 43 countries that the MFU sent films to during the year (Annual Report, 1954, 381).

On 24 May 1950, Lieutenant-General Harold Rawdon Briggs, the newly-appointed Director of Operations in Malaya, presented what is now widely known as the ‘Briggs Plan’. The document promoted the resettlement of Chinese inhabitants away from the fringes of the jungle, in an effort primarily to remove the terrorists from their supporters (and suppliers) but also, as historian Kumar Ramakrishna argues, to create a ‘feeling of complete security’ amongst the exposed Chinese. As part of this, Briggs emphasised the importance of providing social services and welfare for the resettled population (Ramakrishna, 2002, 89).

The Briggs Plan was implemented on 1 June 1950 and over the next four months approximately 26,000 people were resettled. By January 1951, there were 117,000 people in 82 resettlement areas, which rose to 385,000 people (79,000 families) in 429 areas by the time of Briggs’ departure in November 1951. A New Life illustrates a resettlement programme in Johore. The annual report outlined that resettlement in Johore ‘except in a few isolated cases’ was completed by May 1951 (Annual Report, 1951, 12, 2).

MCP dubbed the new villages ‘concentration camps’ and throughout 1951 the Government was accused of ‘gross negligence’ in its administration of the Resettlement areas (Harper, 1998, 177, Ramakrishna, 96). The Government’s desire to resettle communities at great speed (in order to break the link between the settler and terrorists) meant that sites were often ill chosen, under-prepared and badly protected. A highly publicised example was Mawai in Johore, into which 1,200 squatters had moved in 1948. Ramakrishna notes that Mawai was ‘unsuitable for growing crops and too close to the jungle fringe’. In October 1951, terrorists attacked Mawai, killing four informers and abducting 36 young men. The government response was to close the area, which fuelled further bad feeling amongst the rural Chinese, who were expected once more to leave their homes and their crops (Ramakrishna, 2002, 95, 96). The impact of resettlement in breaking up long-established communities, and indeed families, has also now been widely recognised. T.N. Harper cited the example of the Hakka population of Pulai, which had settled in Ulu Kelantan for more than three centuries, but was now broken up, with one group resettled three times (Harper, 1998, 177).