This ink map is a rare instance of Japanese propaganda materials produced in the lead-up to World War II in Southeast Asia, a key chapter in the region’s history. Known as a “blood map”, this propaganda map depicts the suffering and exploitation suffered by the inhabitants of American, British and Dutch colonies in South to Southeast Asia and the Pacific. Some recognizable instances include the Amritsar Massacre in British India, the Cultivation System in Java under the Dutch East Indies, and the extraction of natural resources such as rubber and oil. Singapore is represented as being at the heart of British possessions in the region, where natural resources extracted from Malaya are directed towards it, as well as being a key military defence post indicated by the sandbags on which a British soldier was sitting on carrying a large Union Jack.
