Talk:Lai Teck

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Lai Teck (Loi Tek)

From The War of the Running Dogs by Noel Barber pages 40-41: Loi Teck was a secret agent working for the British in Malaya. He had previously worked for the French in Indo-China until his cover was blown.

My main interest is what happened to him after leaving Malaya. Was he actively supported by the British in escaping and relocating?

220.233.91.27 14:02, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

I am not sure if the British supported Lai Tek during the post-war period but they certainly had regular contacts with him, if Chin Peng's memoirs are anything to go by. After he had been identified as a traitor to the Communist Party of Malaya (CPM) cause, efforts were made to locate him and, as luck would have it, Chin Peng would later literally run into him in Bangkok. Chin Peng then left instructions with both the Thai communist leadership and the Vietnamese communists who were operating in Bangkok to apprehend Lai Tek at the first possible opportunity. Upon returning to Bangkok from a trip to Hong Kong, Lai Tek was jumped by a three-man Thai communist squad and succumbed to death in the ensuing struggle (he was a frail man by then). He was then wrapped in some jute and dumped into the Chao Phraya. Sixtybolts (talk) 22:34, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

It seems highly unlikely that any of this stuff about him being a Japanese/British agent is true, and anyway, is there no news of when the man died? He would be 108 years old by now! FOARP (talk) 20:47, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

Before the onset of World War II, Lai Tek had offered his services to the British and was introduced into the Communist Party of Malaya (CPM) by Singapore Special Branch in 1935 as a secret agent. As for cooperating with the Japanese during their occupation of Malaya, this is attested to by the testimony given by Kempeitai sub-sector commander, Major Satorou Onishi, the spymaster to whom Lai Tek would provide fortnightly reports, during debriefing sessions with British war crimes investigators following the war. It was his complicity that led directly to the Batu Caves massacre, which saw the elimination of almost all of the top CPM state representatives by Japanese forces in one fell swoop, conveniently allowing Lai Tek to consolidate his power over the party. Two books you can refer to: Malaya's Secret Police, 1945-60 by Leon Comber and Chin Peng: My Side Of History by former CPM Secretary-General Chin Peng. Sixtybolts (talk) 15:29, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Name

Chin Peng says his Chinese alias was Lai Te (quoted in article). Undoubtably Chin Peng knew him and he would have no reason to lie about the name. So shouldn't the title of this article be changed? We can then have redirection from the variants.--Jack Upland (talk) 08:37, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

I do not think there was any formal romanization of Lai Teck's name, which accounts for all the variations. These variations were basically done according to the pronunciation of the Chinese characters in his name in different Chinese dialects - and there are a lot of Chinese dialects in use in Malaysia. If I am not wrong, Lai Teck is how his name is read in Hokkien while Lai Te is a rendition of the Mandarin pronunciation using non-standard romanization (in modern day pinyin, it would be Lai De). Also, I just did a quick Google search and the Lai Teck variation is almost twice as common so perhaps the current page title is not incorrect. Sixtybolts (talk) 12:34, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

As quoted in the article, his original pseudonym was Wright - believe it or not! Moreover, he was Vietnamese, not Chinese of any ethnic variant, and not of Malaysian origin. There were no "Chinese characters in his name" because it was not Chinese but English! I would theorise that "Wright" was rendered in Chinese characters which in Mandarin were pronounced "Lai Te" or "Lai De" (a crude approximation for a Chinese speaker), and subsequently these same characters were read as "Lai Teck" in Hokkein or some other dialect. I agree Google shows "Lai Teck" is the most common, but this reflects English-speakers who don't know what they're talking about. After all Ching Peng had actually met the man! At the very least there should be a redirection page from "Lai Te".--Jack Upland (talk) 10:44, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

Being Vietnamese does not preclude the use of Chinese characters, at least in a Sino-Vietnamese capacity (cf. Nguyễn Sinh Cung's nom de guerre, 'Ho Chi Minh', in addition to some of his correspondence). Quốc ngữ, the official Latin-derived script currently in use in Vietnam only became widespread in the late 20th century. In any case, Lai Teck operated primarily within the Southeast Asian communist network whose members were comprised mostly of ethnic Chinese members who spoke in one Chinese dialect or another, and it would obviously make sense for his name to be rendered into Chinese characters. Whether or not 'Wright' was his original pseudonym is of no consequence to the title of this article because in the English language he is almost exclusively referred to as Lai Teck or some variation thereof. With regards to the pertinence of the Google search I mentioned above, please refer to Wikipedia's policy on naming conflicts. While Chin Peng may be an important source of information he is not the only one, and it would seem that the majority of the authors who write on the topic of the Communist Party of Malaya render this man's name as 'Lai Teck', which is the title of this page. Sixtybolts (talk) 17:03, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

Well, we still need a redirection page, which I've now created.--Jack Upland (talk) 22:38, 29 August 2009 (UTC)