Item
A young Japanese teacher is instructing in Japanese
From a collection of staged photographs produced under the title “Life at a Girls School in Peking”, and produced at the Peking Jiyu Gakuen in Japanese-occupied Beijing. The original caption reads: “This instructor is not very much older than 20 years old [sic]”.
Read More
Item
Zhong-Ri qinshan, tianzhen lanman (Sino-Japanese amity, innocent and unaffected)
This series of unattributed photographs is taken from the Daminhui publication Xin Zhongguo (New China) 3.1 (January 1940). They are used here to present scenes of “Sino-Japanese friendship”. In the top two images, Chinese and Japanese children greet each other and waves the flag of Japan and of the Reformed Government of the Republic of China (RGROC). In the image at the bottom of the page, some unnamed performers do an “autumn dance” (qiu wu) entitled “Xing Ya de shuguang” (The light of a revitalized Asia).
Read More
Item
Drill training in Beijing
A group of Chinese male and female police officers attached to the North China Railway Company undergo drill training in Japanese-occupied north China. The city gate behind the group is the Xuanwumen.
Read More
Item
Mao Zedong with Pol Pot and Ieng Sary
This picture shows Mao Zedong with Pol Pot and Ieng Sary during the visit of the Khmer Rouge leaders to Beijing in June 1975. It was featured in the publication (French and English versions) entitled The People’s Republic of Kampuchea (1979). According to the caption which accompanied the image in that publication, the photograph was part of the archives found by the Vietnamese and Kampuchea United Front for National Salvation troops at the Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Kampuchea (Office code 870). Mao is shown congratulating Ieng Sary and Pol Pot and, according to the original caption, saying: “Comrades, you have achieved a prodigious victory. In one go, no more classes!” This photograph is part of the collection held by the Agence Khmère de Presse (AKP) and Cambodia’s Ministry of Information. This collection, which documents the early years of the People’s Republic of Kampuchea as photographed by the Vietnamese and a small team of Cambodian photographers, has not yet been classified or indexed.
Read More
Featured Item
Independence Beach Promenade, Sihanoukville
This photograph of Independence Beach Promenade with the Independence Hotel in the background is part of the collection that was donated to the National Archives of Cambodia from the Library of the Royal University of Fine Arts by Darryl Collins and Helen Grant Ross in 2003. The collection was used by Collins and Ross for their research into urbanisation. The images were probably originally used to mount the Sangkum Reastr Niyum Permanent Exhibition at the Exhibition Hall, Bassac area, Phnom Penh.
Read More
Item
Soviet-era tank, Win-Win Monument
This photograph shows an armoured tank on display on the southern side of the Win-Win Monument complex. The Win-Win Monument complex – photographed here in January 2020 – was inaugurated in December 2018 to mark the twentieth anniversary of the end of the post-Democratic Kampuchea civil war, with the final defection of the remaining Khmer Rouge factions, thanks to the DIFID policy (“Divide, Isolate, Finish, Integrate, Develop”) also known as the “Win Win” policy of Prime Minister Hun Sen.
Read More
Item
Win-Win Monument bas-relief
This photograph shows a detail of the UNTAC -themed bas-relief on the 117-metre-long engraved base of the Win-Win Monument. It focuses on the Paris Peace Agreements (October 1991),and the (unofficial) meeting between Prince Norodom Sihanouk and Hun Sen. The Win-Win Monument complex – photographed here in January 2020 – was inaugurated in December 2018 to mark the twentieth anniversary of the end of the post-Democratic Kampuchea civil war, with the final defection of the remaining Khmer Rouge factions, thanks to the DIFID policy (“Divide, Isolate, Finish, Integrate, Develop”) also known as the “Win Win” policy of Prime Minister Hun Sen.
Read More
Item
H. E. Mr Wang Ching-wei
This supplement was published by the Ministry of Publicity (Xuanchuanbu) on the very day that Wang Jingwei officially “returned” to Nanjing to take up the reins of government under Japanese occupation. The symbols attached to this image (e.g., the KMT “white sun” ensign, and the colours of the ROC flag) suggest a “return” to pre-war norms. The presence of the Japanese is not so much as mentioned here.
Read More
Item
Xin Zhonghua huabao (New China Pictorial) cover, March 1944
This cover image from the Xin Zhonghua huabao (New China Pictorial) 6.3 (March 1944) shows a colourised photograph of Wang Danfeng. Wang was a popular film celebrity in wartime Shanghai. The New China Pictorial was a bilingual (Chinese-English) magazine published from 1939 through 1944 in Shanghai by the occupation journalist Wu Linzhi for distribution in China and throughout Southeast Asia.
Read More
Item
Wang Jingwei with Zang Shiyi
Zang Shiyi (right), the Manchukuo ambassador to the RNG, speaks to Wang Jingwei prior to the both men signing the Japan-Manchukuo-China Joint Declaration on 30 November 1940, through which RNG China recognised Manchukuo. The Declaration was attached to the Sino-Japanese Basic Treaty, through which Japan formally recognised the RNG. Both documents were signed within the main RNG government compound in Nanjing.
Read More
Item
Chu Minyi in his office
In this staged photograph, the RNG foreign minister Chu Minyi is pictured reading a magazine in his office, with a photographic portrait of Wang Jingwei on the wall behind his desk, and Buddhist objets d’art in a cabinet behind him.
Read More
Featured Item
Three men looking at a propaganda poster
This picture shows three young male soldiers looking at a poster that represents a soldier of the Kampuchea United Front for National Salvation (KUFNS, also known as FUNSK) [Front or Renakse] aiming his rifle with bayonet at the enemies, Pol Pot and Ieng Sary. The drawing next to Pol Pot’s head is a reproduction of a photograph of killings by Khmer Rouge guards that were published between April 1976 and January 1978 in the mainstream Western media. Different stories circulated about the origin of those pictures. Some said they had been smuggled out of Cambodia by a relative of the photographer, who himself had died while trying to escape, or by a Cambodian refugee in Paris who refused to reveal his identity. According to Sygma Photo News (the agency which had distributed the original pictures), the images came from Khmer Rouge defectors. In fact, the photos had first appeared in a Thai newspaper in April 1976 and were reprinted in the Bangkok Post under the headline “True or false?” a few days later. The newspaper explained that they had first refused to buy the images from the Thai trader who tried to sell them because they had doubted their authenticity. Even American intelligence services thought the pictures were fake. The photographs, it turned out, were part of an operation by the Thai intelligence services. They had been staged and taken in Thailand. This photograph is part of the collection held by the Agence Khmère de Presse (AKP) and Cambodia’s Ministry of Information. This collection, which documents the early years of the People’s Republic of Kampuchea as photographed by the Vietnamese and a small team of Cambodian photographers, has not yet been classified or indexed.