Communist efforts to recruit students and often unsuccessful attempts to tap into the student movement were contingent on GMD education in overseas Chinese schools. The Guomindang promoted Asianist ideas aiming to increase Chinese influence in Southeast Asia, including the idea of a regional International of Nationalities. On one hand, the GMD’s education policies were responsible for the rise of Chinese identification among the locally born Chinese. The rise of Chinese identity among locally born Chinese contributed to increasing the MCP’s popularity among students on the eve of the war and after the start of the Japanese occupation in 1942. On the other hand, the younger generation of Malayan-born Chinese rebelled against GMD indoctrination, which, however, successfully instilled in them identification with China. Both the MCP and the Communist Youth League had similar shortcomings due to the lack of cadres, finances, and knowledge of language. Teachers in Chinese schools, who often had communist views, instilled in their students the “modern” cosmopolitan outlook, which included Western music, arts, and communism.

Due to its Chinese membership and its national status as the communist party of Malaya, the MCP embraced two national identities, Chinese and Malayan, and represented two nations. Bolshevik language both empowered and hindered the MCP as a Chinese association and as a communist party. By 1934, dictated by the MCP’s logic of survival as an overseas Chinese organization, the MCP started to practice United Front tactics. Over the course of the 1930s, the MCP was supported by some affluent members of the Chinese community, as the overseas bourgeoisie were concerned about a better government in China. Yet the radical antibourgeois and anti-British language of the MCP resulted in a loss of support among affluent members of the Chinese community on the eve of the war. The majority of the Chinese community was neither anti-British nor anticapitalistic. The Bolshevik concept of a proletarian nation and anti-British rhetoric hindered the MCP in its ability to attract a following and excluded the Chinese bourgeoisie as potential members of its communist party. At the same time, the Bolshevik language of the revolution helped to strengthen the MCP’s ambitions.