I remember reading a great article about early US involvement in Vietnam under JFK when they had other priorities last semester, as part of a Cold War module, and it mentioned something to do with the Malayan Emergency and the British counterinsurgency. I can't really remember much else, but it's piqued my interest while I was idly thinking about something related earlier.
I'm aware already that there were some big differences between the two enemies being fought, but did the US take inspiration from some of the anti-communist forces in Malaya anyway?
The answer is a resounding no.
In the early years of US involvement in South Vietnam, the ARVN was trained in conventional warfare, shaped in the image of the US Army. The belief was that the future conflict between South and North Vietnam would be that of a conventional one, resembling perhaps the Korean War in its nature. As the insurgency started to gain strength in late 1950's, the ARVN and US advisers were not prepared to face off against insurgents.
When the time came to create an overarching strategy for the American escalation and participation in what would become the Vietnam War, counterinsurgency was put to the side. It was deemed to be too slow and didn't fit into the doctrine of the US Armed Forces at the time. The belief that the insurgency could be crushed by superior firepower was instead prevalent and was thus chosen as the primary strategy. While pacification efforts were carried out during the conflict, they were carried out on a very limited basis and had no greater effect on the conflict as a whole.
The most interesting connection between Malaya and Vietnam in this context is the British Advisory Mission (BRIAM) that visited South Vietnam between 1961 and 1965 to advise the American forces on location how to combat the insurgents. The BRIAM was led by Sir Robert Thompson, who at the time was one of the leading experts on the topic of counterinsurgency against revolutionary guerilla warfare. While the advise that was given by the BRIAM was very sound and would have made a difference, the US leadership chose to ignore it completely (for the aforementioned reasons).