The fact that the Emergency was only officially declared over in 1960 was I believe due to a number of factors and not due to mishandling during the start of the Emergency.Indeed it was mishandled from the start.
If it was not mishandled in 1948 the insurgency may not have lasted until 1960...check the data there was still violence into 1960. In fact, Chin Peng did not officially surrender until 1989.
But then again, most governments faced with an insurgency threat, tend to start off underestimating the nature of the threat and the counter measures needed. IMO the difference in Malaya was that the British were relatively fast in formulating their ''hearts and minds'' programmes by winning over the Chinese population and having a clear chain of command under civilian control with various intel bodies complemeting one another and operating in unison. A major advantage the Brits in Malaya had over the Coalition in Afghanistan was a much better understanding of the local culture, customs and mindset. In pre-independance Malaya, it was common even for junior level British district officers to speak the Malay language and also in many cases Chinese.
That and the fact that the majority population-Malaya-did not join the insurgency, and the British were not always soft in their COIN application-forced removals of the Chinese population.
A major advantage for the Brits was that the presence of British and Commonwealth troops in Malaya was not unwelcomed by the majority of the local population, who were in no hurry to see a speedy withdrawal of these troops. The timetable for British troop withdrawal from Malaya was dictated by results in the field against the MRLA and internal British politics, not by the need to sooth any fears amongst the Malayan population.
The Gurkhas were not considered colonialists though, and well you should know when the British actually set their policy. Its application was designed, at least in part, to prevent the Malayans from joining the insurgency.
Just so you know I'm not talking out of my butt, here are some references:
The Malayan emergency and Indonesian confrontation : the commonwealth’s wars 1948-1966 / Robert Jackson. Barnsley, England : Pen & Sword Aviation, 2008.
Hearts and minds in guerilla warfare : the Malayan emergency, 1948-1960 / Richard Stubbs. Singapore : Eastern Universities Press, 2004.
Dialogues with Chin Peng : new light on the Malayan Communist Party : dialogues and papers originating from a workshop with Chin Peng held at the Centre for the Study of the Chinese Southern Diaspora, Australian National University, Canberra, 22-23 February 1999. Singapore : National University of Singapore, [c2004]
The Malayan Emergency, 1948-60: the domino that stood / Donald Mackay: 1st English ed. London; Washington [D.C.] : Brassey’s, 1997.
Anthony Short, The Communist Insurrection in Malaya, 1948-1960 (New York: Crane, Russak, 1975).
Robert Grainger Ker Thompson, Defeating Communist Insurgency; the Lessons of Malaya and Vietnam, Studies in international security 10 (New York: F. A. Praeger, 1966).
. As you mentioned previously, you used to work for a think-tank.
