a bit late to the party. please note that Chinese didnt MIGRATE to Malaya before Malaysia obtained independent from the British Empire. Majority of chinese (mostly from southern china) were hard labours, imported by British Empire to help them to rid off Malaysia agricultural products and natural resources. When Malaya applied independent status off British Empire, one of the many conditions that imposed by BE is that Malaya Gov must granted citizenship to both Chinese and Indian IF they were to stay back after independent in 1957. After 1957, there is no more citizenships been granted to Chinese and Indian. The current malaysian gov only granted citizenship to Indonesian Muslim, Filipino Muslim and Indian muslim, If you are not muslim, its extremely difficult to obtain citizenship even if you married to a non muslim malaysian.