建設馬來亞 / 破壞馬來亞 (Building Malaya / Destroying Malaya)
A Chinese-language poster shows a muscular, smiling farmer hoeing under a partly cropped sign ending 'BHARU', captioned 'Build Malaya', above a haggard man in a red-star cap slumped in dark undergrowth, captioned 'Destroy Malaya'. A stamp reads 'Free peoples join forces to build a free world'. The tells: harm to the country is assigned wholly to the guerrilla figure, and the stamp supplies the virtue words.
Propaganda techniques used in this poster
- Date
- 1953
- Period
- Cold War
- Made by
- U.S. Department of State / U.S. Information Agency poster series distributed in Asia (Chinese-language edition)
Full record
Region, Country, Medium, Issuer type, Regime, Leader, Audience, Purpose, Theme, Event, Source, Rights
- Region
- North America
- Country
- United States
- Medium
- Poster
- Issuer type
- State
- Regime
- Eisenhower Administration
- Leader
- Dwight D. Eisenhower
- Audience
- Foreign public
- Purpose
- Demonize
- Theme
- War and the military
- Event
- Malayan Emergency
- Source
- Unidentified Source blurred: contractors, cutouts, buried disclosure
- Source
- U.S. National Archives (NARA), RG 306, series 'Propaganda Posters Distributed in Asia' (NAID 1767935), retrieved September 29, 2026
- Rights
- Public domain (U.S. government work; NARA use restriction 'Unrestricted')
U.S. Department of State / U.S. Information Agency; National Archives, Records of the U.S. Information Agency (RG 306).
Text on the object
Original (Chinese) · read from the image, not independently checked
自由人民 合力建設 自由世界 建設馬來亞 破壞馬來亞 [on the sign, partly cropped:] …REA BHARU
Free peoples / join forces to build / a free world Build Malaya Destroy Malaya [sign:] …REA BHARU
Traditional characters. The two headlines and the three columns of the stamp are set right to left. The sign is cut off by the frame. Translation is FRAME's own literal rendering, machine-assisted and not verified by a fluent reader.
