This meant that, while Malayan communists might muster
sufficient forces to sustain prolonged resistance, they could never mobilise enough of the
populace to win outright. Unlike the Vietnamese, furthermore, they received negligible
assistance from China. In the early years of the Emergency the MCP was more aligned with
Moscow than with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), although Sino-Soviet differences
would not greatly trouble it until after the retreat to southern Thailand. Yet Mao’s military
victories could not but inspire the Malayan guerrillas and the inauguration of the People’s
Republic of China (PRC) in October 1949 boosted recruitment amongst overseas Chinese.