Red China

The looming threat of Communist China during the Cold War.

This ominous map of eastern Asia was designed by R.M. Chapin, Jr. and published as part of the April 18, 1955 issue of Time Magazine. It uses a custom projection to highlight the Communist threat from Vietnam (partitioned the prior year at the 17th parallel) to North Korea, with Chinese territory in yellow/light green, Communist countries in red, and democratic nations in a darker shade of green.

A huge swath of territory from the Pacific to the Himalayas is illustrated in a provocative style, implicitly designed to be threatening to an American audience. The proximity to American-held Okinawa is clearly exaggerated, and a jet black background with blood-red title give a chilling aesthetic. Numerous large cities with populations over 500,000 are connected by a robust network of railroads that reach into the adjacent Soviet Union. The threat of close cooperation between the two blocs was constant, if largely overstated, during the Cold War.