Japanese-occupied China
(1937 – 1945)

Visual cultures of occupation in wartime China

Much of north, east and south China was occupied by the Japanese military, or by Chinese “client regimes” backed by the Japanese military, in the period between December 1937 and August 1945. While the brutality, deprivation and violence of the occupation have often been the focus of the academic literature on this period, scholars are increasingly looking at the various ways in which Chinese people who lived under occupation expressed themselves. There is also a growing awareness in the field of modern Chinese history that the Chinese regimes and organisations which emerged under Japanese domination in this period are worthy of study in their own right, and can tell us much about both the nature of the wartime experience, and about the “political culture” (and cultural politics) of occupation more generally.

This case study includes examples of visual cultures generated in areas of China occupied by Japan between 1937 and 1945. It mainly includes materials produced by “collaborationist” Chinese administrations. These include the Provisional Government of the Republic of China (PGROC) in north China (1937-1940); the Reformed Government of the Republic of China (RGROC) in east China (1938-1940); and the Reorganised National Government of the Republic of China (RNG) which was founded in March 1940, when it subsumed most existing “client” states, and which only ceased to exist in 1945.