defence and internal security needs and requested British, Australian and New Zealand troops to remain in the country until its internal security and national armed forces could be built up and the foreign troops gradually phased out. In 1970, the CPM's guerrilla bases in Thailand were hard hit by the trials and executions of supposed spies. Two breakaway factions were formed which condemned the purge. Chin, who was then based in China, denied involvement and later rehabilitated his accused comrades. During the 1970s and 1980s, the CPM intensified its activities and clashes with the security forces. These activities were due to a rivalry among three factions in the CPM over party purges and strategies, with each faction trying to outdo the other in militancy and violence. However, in 1980, Deng Xiaoping refocused his priorities back on the Chinese bureaucracy after his return to power in 1978. He welcomed Lee Kuan Yew, the then-Prime Minister of Singapore and its leading political figure since independence from Malaysia, in a visit to Beijing. Chin recalled that Deng had not bothered to meet him since then. Finally, in December 1980, Deng summoned Chin. In the meeting, Deng demanded Chin to immediately close down all the CPM's radio stations which were broadcasting from China to Malaysia. When Chin asked Deng when he would like him to cease the broadcasting, Deng replied, "The sooner the better ... Lee (Lee Kuan Yew) asked me to stop the broadcasts immediately." Moreover, during his official visit to China, the second Prime Minister of Malaysia Tun Abdul Razak held talks with Chinese communist leader Chairman Mao Zedong and urged him to stop giving aid to the CPM. The fourth Prime Minister Dr. Mahathir Mohamad further succeeded in persuading China to downgrade its ties with the CPM. This was an important factor that contributed to the CPM's decision to end its armed struggle. The End of the Emergency The CPM finally laid down its arms in 1989. The death toll during the armed conflict totalled thousands. Those sympathetic to Chin Peng tend to portray the violence perpetrated by the CPM as defensive, while right-wing opponents tend to portray it as aggressive and unethical. Some have claimed a large number of civilian casualties was in contrast to the stance adopted by Mao Zedong and his policy of the Eight Points of Attention. On 2 December 1989, at the town of Hat Yai