---
title: 時局圖 (The Situation in the Far East / Map of the Present Situation), newer version with English labels
url: https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/situation-in-far-east-tse-tsan-tai-1900/
description: A Chinese pictorial map of about 1900 shows a Russian bear over Manchuria and Mongolia, a British lion-bulldog in south and east China, a French frog in…
section: Collection
---

[Collection](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/)

[![時局圖 (The Situation in the Far East / Map of the Present Situation), newer version with English labels](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/situation-in-far-east-tse-tsan-tai-1900.jpg)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/situation-in-far-east-tse-tsan-tai-1900.jpg)

# 時局圖 (The Situation in the Far East / Map of the Present Situation), newer version with English labels

A Chinese pictorial map of about 1900 shows a Russian bear over Manchuria and Mongolia, a British lion-bulldog in south and east China, a French frog in Indochina, a US eagle over the Philippines and Japan's rising sun off Korea, while Qing officials sleep, feast or hold a coin. Margin slogans call the picture 'self-evident' and 'clear at a glance'; the staged imminent seizure of China is the fear appeal.

- **Date:** 1900
- **Period:** [Pre-1914](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#era=pre-1914)
- **Made by:** Tse Tsan-tai (謝纘泰), Hong Kong reformer; this copy from a U.S. State Department dispatch
- **Region:** [East Asia](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#region=east-asia)
- **Country:** [British Hong Kong](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#country=british-hong-kong)
- **Medium:** [Print](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#medium=print)
- **Issuer type:** [Movement](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#actor=movement)
- **Regime:** [British Hong Kong](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#regime=british-hong-kong)
- **Leader:** [Henry Arthur Blake](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#leader=henry-arthur-blake)
- **Audience:** [Foreign public](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#audience=foreign-public)
- **Purpose:** [Warn or inform](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#purpose=warn-inform)
- **Themes:** [Empire and colonialism](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#theme=empire-colonialism), [War and the military](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#theme=war-military)
- **Event:** [Scramble for Concessions in China](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#event=scramble-for-concessions-in-china)
- **Techniques:** [Fear appeal](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/fear-appeal/)
- **Source:** Identified Openly sourced: the speaker is who they say they are
- **Source:** [Wikimedia Commons (National Archives image, via DPLA)](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Color_Broadside_%22Map_of_the_Present_Situation%22_from_Dispatch_-54_-_DPLA_-_50f91233c49ccdfea208071ad7676e60.jpg), retrieved September 29, 2026
- **Rights:** Public domain (Commons: PD-China, author d. 1938; US federal record, NARA ID 5634178) Tse Tsan-tai (謝纘泰); U.S. National Archives (NARA ID 5634178) via DPLA and Wikimedia Commons

## Text on the object

Original (Multiple (Chinese and English)) · read from the image, not independently checked

```
時局圖
[right margin] 不言而喻
[left margin] 一目了然

西伯利亞  SIBERIA
俄國
蒙古  MONGOLIA
MANCH
COREA
日本國  JAPAN
THE RISING SUN
(JOHN BULL & I
WILL WATCH THE BEAR)
太平洋
[ring on the lion's tail] [G?]ERMAN AMBITION SAUSAGE
THE OPEN DOOR
THE [illegible] CHINA
FASHODA
COLONIAL
EXPANSION
[on the eagle] [BLOOD] IS THICKER [THAN W]ATER
THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS
BORNEO
BURMAH
SIAM
COCHIN CHINA
ANAM
TIBET 西藏
EASTERN TUEKESTAN
HONG KONG
HAINAN

[many further province and place names in Chinese and English, e.g. YUNNAN, KWONG SI, KWONG TUNG, FUKKIEN, CHEKIANG, HONAN, KIAOCHOW, WEIHAIWEI, CHUSAN; smaller labels [illegible]]

版權所有翻刻必究
```

English translation (machine translation by Claude, not verified by a fluent reader)

```
Map of the Present Situation
[right margin] It goes without saying
[left margin] Clear at a glance

Siberia
Russia
Mongolia
Manchuria
Corea
Japan
The Rising Sun (John Bull & I will watch the bear)
Pacific Ocean
[ring] German ambition sausage
The Open Door
Fashoda colonial expansion
[eagle] Blood is thicker than water
The Philippine Islands (remaining English labels as printed above)

All rights reserved; reprinting will be prosecuted
```

Read at 1280 px from a 3915 px scan. Lettering on the lion's ring, the lion's body and the eagle is small or partly hidden by the animals, so those lines are marked or bracketed. The last Chinese line is the copyright notice.

[← Sífilis: Curación absoluta y radical en el Sanatorio para sifilíticos (Syphilis: Absolute and Radical Cure at the Sanatorium for Syphilitics)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/sifilis-sanatorio-abreu-1900/) ["Monsieur Cécil Rhodes" (Le Rire cover, 1900) →](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/le-rire-cecil-rhodes-leandre-1900/)

## Using the same techniques

- [Der Warner (broadsheet lampoon on the Jesuits after Breitenfeld and Rain)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/der-warner-anti-jesuit-broadsheet-1632/) (1632 · Scapegoating, Fear appeal)
- [Sans-Culottes, feeding Europe with the Bread of Liberty (James Gillray)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/sans-culottes-bread-of-liberty-gillray-1793/) (Jan 12, 1793 · Fear appeal, Name-calling)
- [豬叫取胎圖 (Picture of the Pig Sect Extracting a Foetus), from Reverently Obeying the Sacred Edict: A Complete Picture Gallery to Repel Heterodoxy](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/pig-cry-taking-foetus-hunan-1891/) (1891 · Fear appeal, Name-calling). Content note: Colour woodblock caricature depicting foreign Christians as members of a 'pig' sect and showing them cutting a foetus from a woman; violence against a woman and derision of Christianity.
- [The Radical Programme, No. 4: Dismemberment of the Empire (Gladstone & Co. auction India), St Stephen's Review Presentation Cartoon](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/radical-programme-selling-india-st-stephens-review-1891/) (Oct 31, 1891 · Fear appeal, Scapegoating)
- [En posesión de su presa (In Possession of Its Prey)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/en-posesion-de-su-presa-el-diablo-1894/) (Jun 2, 1894 · Fear appeal)
- [劉永福懸賞抓拿日本奸細告示 (Liu Yongfu's notice offering rewards for capturing Japanese spies), Taiwan](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/liu-yongfu-reward-notice-japanese-spies-1895/) (1895 · Name-calling, Fear appeal)
- [Sífilis: Curación absoluta y radical en el Sanatorio para sifilíticos (Syphilis: Absolute and Radical Cure at the Sanatorium for Syphilitics)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/sifilis-sanatorio-abreu-1900/) (1900 · Fear appeal)
- ["Negro Rule" vampire cartoon with sworn affidavit](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/negro-rule-vampire-1900/) (Jul 4, 1900 · Accusation in a mirror, Fear appeal, Scapegoating). Content note: Racist "Negro Rule" caricature.
