For those Chinese living in Malaya’s rural areas, Britain’s “gloves off” policy meant, in many cases, that the government did not warn villagers of their impending removals. This was particularly true in areas branded as “bad” or “black.” One colonial official later described that “when resettlement happened, the first thing was that it was like an ambush almost; suddenly the dawn morning, all of the police, all of the soldiers came in and surrounded the village. It was pretty terrifying.”[118]
