By May 1961, although the Tunku was evidently prepared to contemplate the possibility of a merger between the Federation and Singapore, he was nonetheless adamant that two essential conditions first be satisfied. First, before being committed to an agreement to bring Singapore into the Federation, he wanted to be absolutely certain that he would be able to incorporate the three Borneo territories, with their predominantly non-Chinese population, to form a wider Malaysian Federation. Second, the Singapore Government would have to agree to have a smaller representation in the federal parliament than they would otherwise be entitled to on a population basis. In return, the Tunku was prepared to concede to Singapore the retention of much wider local powers than the other member states of the Federation. The intention behind the conditions was obvious: it was vital to the Malayan Government that the terms of the merger with Singapore should contain provisions that would safeguard the Federation as a whole against what the UMNO and Malay politicians feared most — the possibility of Chinese political domination. The Tunku was clearly caught in the horns of a dilemma. He knew, on the one hand, that pro-communist forces were gaining ground in Singapore, and that a communist-controlled independent Singapore would give him no end of trouble. The only way he could control the situation was to bring Singapore into the Federation and then deal with the communist threat there as an internal security issue directly from Kuala Lumpur. Yet, he knew of the political cost of bringing Singapore into the Federation — the addition of 1.3 million Chinese on the island would upset the racial balance in the Federation, and “ruin the calm atmosphere there”. Lee Kuan Yew was aware of the Tunku's deep-seated mistrust of the Chinese — “many Chinese educated and new immigrants to the country”, the Tunku was reported to have said, “will always be loyal to China and they are less Malayan-minded”. Earlier overtures on the part of the Singapore Government to merger with Malaya had repeatedly been rejected by the Tunku primarily because of the Chinese factor. But Lee knew that by 1961 the Tunku was beginning to take notice of the increasingly tenuous political situation in Singapore. The Tunku would have to act, but, clearly, he would only do so on his own terms.