British awareness of Japanese colonial operations did not end after [the Axis’s] defeat in 1945. Indeed, the success of Britain’s recolonization of Singapore and Malaya relied heavily on advice from, and consultation with, [Axis] military and civilian administrators awaiting repatriation to Japan, Korea and Taiwan in Singapore and Malaya between late 1945 and the middle of 1947, by which time most had gone home.⁴⁶

Shinozaki Mamoru, who had helped set up at least three protection villages and had preached the virtues of Pan‐Asianism to the residents of the New Syonan protection village near Mersing, was a senior advisor to the British authorities after their return to Singapore.

British military lawyers and intelligence officials also debriefed more than 12,000 [Axis] officers, NCOs, enlisted men, kempeitai military police, and Japanese, Korean and Taiwanese gunzoku auxiliary military personnel stationed in Singapore and Malaya at the time of the surrender.

Conducted by British personnel hastily trained to speak Japanese at the School for Oriental and Asian Studies in London and by Japanese‐Britons and Japanese‐Australians, interrogations ranged widely across [the Empire of] Japan’s conduct, methods, and policies in Malaya and Singapore.⁴⁷ It should not be surprising then, to happen upon elements of Japanese seized hearts counterinsurgency in the subsoil of British counterinsurgency in Malaya.

(Emphasis added.)