Lee Meng

Who is Lee Meng?

Lee Meng, born as Lee Ten Tai, was a female Chinese guerilla leader during the Communist rising in post-World War II Malaya.

Having joined the Communist Party of Malaya in Ipoh in 1942 at the age of 16, Lee Meng led the underground party's Ipoh area committee during the Japanese occupation of Malaya.

She was captured by the British in July 1952, tried for having a hand grenade in her possession and sentenced to death. In 1953, the Hungarian government offered to swap Edgar Sanders for her. The British prime minister of the time, Winston Churchill, refused, but, due to the efforts of Phaik Gan Lim, her sentence was commuted and she was released to China in 1964, after serving 11 years in Taiping prison.

She visited Malaysia in 2007.