The Beginning

The region now known as Malaysia was first mentioned in Chinese and Sanskrit records of the seventh and eighth centuries.

In subsequent centuries the area was under the influence and loose control of various Thai and Indonesian empires, including the great Sumatra-based civilization of Sri Vijaya.

This was followed in the 14th century by the Majapahit empire based in Java. Sri Vijaya and Majapahit, Bhuddist and Hindu respectively, both left a mark on the peninsula. But even by the 14th century, Islam – already well established in parts of India – was steadily spreading eastwards through the substantial trade between India and Malaya.

The first Muslim empire in Malaya, based on the trading port of Malacca on the western side of the peninsula, was formed under the rule of King Parameswara in the first quarter of the 15th century. Early in the 16th century, the Portuguese moved in and, after capturing Malacca, established a number of fortified bases in the region.

Sultan Mahmud, the ruler of Malacca at the time, was unable to recapture it immediately. However, his successors - who had moved to Johore on the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula - noted the arrival of the Dutch in the region at the end of the century and formed an alliance with them to expel the Portuguese in 1641. Over the next century and a half, the Dutch steadily expanded throughout the region until the Dutch East Indies became the heart of a most prosperous colonial trading operation.

Coming at the end of the 18th century, the British were relatively late arrivals to the region, but they were to play a key role following the European wars of the 1790s and, in particular, the defeat of The Netherlands by France in 1795.

Rather than hand them over to the French, the Dutch passed control of some of their most valuable resources to the British in what became a series of exchanges. Gradually, during the 19th century, the British took control of the peninsula using economic pressure (particularly their monopoly of the tin trade) rather than outright military force: local rulers were permitted substantial internal autonomy provided that they posed no threat to British interests.

The Federated Malay States were created as an entity in 1895, and remained under British colonial control until the Japanese invasion of 1942. After the defeat of Japan in 1945, the 11 states were once again incorporated as British Protectorates and, in 1948, became the Federation of Malaya. In the same year, communist guerrillas – the bulk of whom were ethnic Chinese – launched an armed struggle aimed at establishing an independent socialist state.

‘The Emergency’, as the colonial authorities dubbed it, lasted formally until 1960. However, the serious fighting was over by the mid-1950s and, in 1957, Britain proceeded with its plan to grant independence to the Federation of Malaya.