The Shadow Of Courage: A Malaysian Chinese Police Chief’s Legacy On An Ipoh Street

His story remains particularly relevant in contemporary Malaysia, where discussions about race and representation continue to shape public discourse.

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Jalan Koo Chong Kong in Ipoh is a street that tells a story of sacrifice.

The street name commemorates a Malaysian Chinese police chief who fell to communist bullets at the height of the nation’s turbulent 1970s.

On a sweltering November afternoon in 1975, Tan Sri Khoo Chong Kong, then Perak’s Chief of Police, was heading home for lunch.

It was a routine drive down familiar streets, past the colonial-era buildings that still stand today.

At a traffic light near Ipoh Hospital, two men of the Malayan Communist Party (MCP) on a motorcycle pulled alongside his official car.

They wore white school uniforms—a cruel disguise that would have been unremarkable in the midday bustle of this provincial capital.

Moments later, gunfire shattered the ordinary – he was hit by a total of 45 bullets, with one in his left hand and four in the face and neck.

A replica Volvo 244, identical to the one that carried Khoo, stands as the centrepiece of an exhibition chronicling his assassination at Ashby Road (present-day Jalan Raja Ashman Shah). (Pix: Discover Ipoh)

A Barrier-Breaking Badge, A Bullet-Riddled Legacy

The assassination was methodical, almost surgical.

The communist insurgents had been systematically eliminating police personnel and special branch officers before setting their sights on Khoo.

That day, they claimed two lives in the immediate attack: Sergeant Yeong Peng Cheong died at the scene, while Khoo was rushed to Ipoh Hospital.

Despite emergency medical efforts, he succumbed to his injuries shortly after arrival.

There, he spent his final moments with his wife before passing away approximately 28 hours after being shot, at the age of 50.

A newspaper clipping reporting the assassination of Khoo. Marked by urgent typography and dramatic reporting typical of the era, the article captures the shock that rippled through Malaysia’s security forces and would later prompt one of the largest funeral gatherings in Ipoh’s history. (Pix: Orang Perak)

Honours Span Decades

What makes Khoo’s story remarkable isn’t just his death but what it represented in Malaysia’s complex racial tapestry.

In a country where ethnic tensions often simmer beneath the surface, Khoo—a Chinese Malaysian—had risen to become a state police chief, crossing invisible barriers that often kept Chinese Malaysians from the highest ranks of law enforcement.

His funeral drew 20,000 mourners – including then-prime minister Tun Abdul Razak Hussein, deputy prime minister Tun Hussein Onn, and Inspector-General of Police Tun Haniff Omar – a crowd that transcended racial lines.

He was awarded the Commander of the Order of Loyalty to the Crown of Malaysia (PSM) posthumously, recognizing his contributions and sacrifice for the nation.

Four decades after his passing, in 2015, the Sultan of Perak further commemorated his legacy by conferring the Darjah Seri Panglima Taming Sari (SPTS).

This state award, announced during the Sultan’s birthday honors list, bestowed upon him the additional title of Datuk Seri Panglima.

The unprecedented turnout at Khoo’s funeral procession, cutting across racial and social boundaries, marked one of the largest funeral processions in Ipoh and Malaysian police force history. (Pix: Orang Perak)

More Than a Name: The Streets That Challenge Malaysia’s Racial Narrative

Today, Jalan Koo Chong Kong stands as more than a street sign.

In a nation where public spaces rarely bear Chinese names, this is a quiet revolution in nomenclature—a metal-and-enamel reminder that service to the country knows no ethnic boundaries.

The street, like its namesake, represents a Malaysia that could be: where loyalty and sacrifice trump racial arithmetic.

Unity against insurgency: Malaysian Chinese join fellow citizens in an anti-communist rally at Semenyih, Selangor, 1950—a powerful rebuke to racist assumptions that the Chinese community supported the communist guerrillas during the Malayan Emergency. (Pix: Wikipedia)

As evening traffic flows along this street, few may pause to consider why it bears this particular name.

But in these six syllables lies a story of a man who wore his badge above his ethnicity and paid the ultimate price for it.

Honor and Hostility: The Politics of Posthumous Street Naming

In modern Malaysia, where conversations about race still dominate political discourse, Khoo’s legacy offers a different narrative—one where a Chinese police chief’s sacrifice was so profound that it became permanently etched into the geography of a Malaysian city.

The second street named after him—Jalan Koo Chong Kong 2 in Kajang—might seem like bureaucratic redundancy, but it serves as an echo, amplifying a message that remains relevant fifty years later: that in death, as in life, Khoo transcended the very racial boundaries that his assassins, in their ideological fervour, sought to exploit.

The significance of these street names cannot be understated, particularly in a country where road naming remains a sensitive issue—as evidenced in 2019.

A malicious rumour falsely claimed that a road named after Perak’s first menteri besar had been renamed to honour Khoo, highlighting how even posthumous recognition can become entangled in racial politics.

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