Our history books in government schools of the 1980s, we were told that the English company The East India Company based in India, came to Malaysia and developed industry of raw materials that they would profit from. Malaysia was completely undeveloped so to obtain any material the English had to make and manage their industries.
The main profit making industries of Malaysia was Tin ore for the storage of foods and Rubber for vehicle tyres. But to support both industries infrastructure also had to be built. Transport, Livelihoods, Reliable food and water supply, Administration for the people, Towns, etc.
We were taught that the English found labourers to support the industries from India and China. India was under their rule and hence shipping ship loads of their own cheap indentured labourers to an unknown country was easy and easy to control. The Indians worked in the rubber plantations. The rubber company went to one place to source labourers who all spoke the same language. We understood that the English also brought the Chinese to Malaysia to work in the tin mines. But I do not think it worked the same way. There were no boat loads of Chinese being shipped to Malaysia by the British. In fact the British did limited trade with China in exchange for Opium, would the Chinese have sold their people to work as labourers in Malaysia? And in exchange for?
Perhaps the Chinese had arrived in Malaysia on their own and they were looking for work.
Chinese traders first visited Malaysia in the 14th century and whilst tiny clusters of Chinese settled in Melaka, where tin was eventually mined, Chinese immigrants only arrived in numbers after the 1780s. Indeed, by the 1840s, a time which stands out in the annals of the Malaysian tin industry as the period of great discoveries of tin riches, many Chinese arrived in Malaysia at the invitation of Malay rulers.So what was happening in China from 1780 to 1840s?
Famines in China were a constant scourge during its entire historyThe four famines of 1810, 1811, 1846, and 1849 are said to have taken a toll of not less than 45,000,000 lives. In 1875-1878 four provinces in northern China, the district known as the "Garden of China," suffered a failure of crops owing to lack of rain, in an area about the size or France, 9,000,000 people perished.
To appreciate the magnitude of the famines in China at that time, lets compare it with other world Famines.
An account of more recent recorded famines presented by the author, Ralph Graves, can be summarized as follows:
An account of more recent recorded famines presented by the author, Ralph Graves, can be summarized as follows:
| YEAR | COUNTRY | DEATHS |
| 79-88 AD | Rome | 100,000 (in 1 day) |
| 168 | Rome | 5,000 daily |
| 967-972 DC | Fustat, Egypt | 500,000 |
| 1025-1027 AD | Cairo, Egypt | unknown |
| 1097 | Palestine | 100,000 |
| 1218 | Damietta, Egypt | 70,000 |
| 1235 | London | 20,000 |
| 1257-1259 | London | 50,000 |
| 1333-1337 | Kian, China | 4,000,000 |
| 1437-1439 | France | --- |
| 1600 | Russia | 500,000 |
| 1769-1790 | Bengal, India | 10,000,000 |
| 1810-1811 | China | see below |
| 1846-1849 | China | 45,000,000 |
| 1876-1890 | India | 5,200,000 |
| 1845-1847 | Irlanda | 300,000 |
| 1906-1910 | China | 10,000,000 |
| 1850–1873 | As a result of Imperialism, The opium wars and theTaiping Rebellion, drought, and famine, the population of China dropped by more than 60 million[70] | China | 60 million |
