Green’s Dictionary of Slang

(a) a derog. term for any East Asian person; the concept that such ‘teeming’ races are poised to overtake white ‘civilization’.

1895		S. Wales Dly News 12 Jan. 3/4: THE YELLOW PERIL. The special correspondent of Le Soir, in accent communication from St. Petersburg, says :—[...] China and Japan (the latter possess- ing only an exterior varnish of civilisation, cover- ing a barbarity and profound and fanatical hate against Europeans) offer in any union serious elements against European civilisation.
1899		(ref. to c.1890) Wilkes-Barre Wkly Times (PA) 2 Sept. 4/5: Some eight or nine years ago Emperor William of Germany created asensation by painting an allegorical picture [...] Europe and the United States as menaced by a dreadful spectre [...] China, Japan and the other yellow races of Asia. This was termed the ‘yellow peril’.
1900		Daily News 21 July 3/5: The ‘yellow peril’ in its most serious form.
1908		N.Z. Truth 3 Nov. 8/7: [heading] The Yellow Peril [...] The other two Wellington papers seem to be absolutely indifferent as to whether this country is populated by the infernal Chow.
1912		E. Pugh City Of The World 321: In England the Yellow Peril does not seem to touch us very nearly yet [...] what we do not faintly realise is that the Chinese invasion began many years ago; that there is a Chinatown in London as well as in New York and San Francisco.
1922		N.Z. Truth 29 Apr. 1/5: We are one of the handiest portions of the Empire to the alleged Yellow Peril.
1925		C. McKay Trial by Lynching (1977) 9: Cord always asserted that the cock-and-bull story about the ‘yellow peril’ was invented by Jewish journalists.
1939		Rover 18 Feb. 28: The yellow perils searched in every corner.
1949		M.E. Counselman ‘The Green Window’ in Goodstone Pulps (1970) 185/1: The Yellow Peril [...] When everybody thought the Chinese were going to take over the country.
1959		W. Hall Long and the Short and the Tall Act I: Bammo, my old son, the British Army’s in a desperate position. The yellow peril’s about to descend on us.
1967		J. Orton Diaries (1986) 27 July 254: ‘All these Indians and Chinese,’ Mr Nicko, my hairdresser said, ‘swarms of them. The whole street behind my flat is taken over by the Yellow Peril.’.
1978		Maledicta II:1+2 (Summer/Winter) 173: Yellow peril The Japanese, in World War II and before. The Chinese during the Korean War. Generally, any Oriental threat to Western security and stability.
1989		H. Rawson Dict. of Invective (1991) 430: yellow peril. Orientals, especially Chinese, as perceived by Europeans in fear of being overrun by the peoples of the East.
1990		P.-D. Uys Part Hate Part Love (1994) 33: These laws were to protect her and the children from the black peril, or the yellow peril .
1996		P. Beatty White Boy Shuffle 23: [of Vietnamese] Hello! Don’t you fucking baboons know that this is the goddam enemy? The yellow peril.
2001		Indep. Rev. 31 May 1: All of which seems filled with suspicion of the ‘yellow peril.’.
2021		P. Papathanasiou Stoning 43: Abbott stared down the yellow peril in the jungle [and] killed six of the squinty-eyed bastards.
2023		R. Milward Man-Eating Typewriter 115: What proportion chink are you? [...] Yellow peril?’.

(b) the Communist Chinese.

1969		P. Theroux Murder in Mount Holly (1999) 51: Listened to news of the President’s [...] negotiations with what Mr Gibbon called ‘The Yellow Peril.’.
1973		B.S. Johnson All Bull 198: The Korean War had escalated [...] I felt that I might have to spend the rest of my life defending the fens from the yellow peril.
1988		McGill Dict. of Kiwi Sl. 127/2: Yellow Peril the Chinese Communists perceived by xenophobic antipodeans as imminent invaders.
1998		Sun. Tel. mag. 11 Jan. 11: The ‘yellow peril’ has been replaced by the ‘black fellah in your backyard.’.
2003		McGill Reed Dict. of N.Z. Sl. [as cit. 1988].

(a) a Gold Flake cigarette.

1919		C.H. Thorp Handful of Ausseys 201: The speaker paused to light up a ‘yellow peril’.
1923		O. Onions Peace in Our Time 30: It was stupid [...] the way fellows rotted about [...] smoking too many yellow perils.
1925		(con. WWI) Fraser & Gibbons Soldier and Sailor Words 311: Yellow Peril, A: A cigarette.

(b) (UK prison) vegetable soup.

1989

J. Morton Lowspeak.