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Kagayaku Tōa no michi (The road to a shining East Asia)
This postcard, featuring an illustration by the prolific Japanese artist Riichiro Kawashima, shows a Japanese soldier celebrating “kagayaku Tōa no michi” (the road to a shining East Asia), with Chinese civilians. Of interest here is the fact that the Republican Chinese flag appears to have been drawn onto the postcard (and made to look as if it is being held by the child dressed in white), while other figures in the image hold the “five-coloured flag (wuseqi). The “five-coloured flag” was used by the Reformed Government of the Republic of China (RGROC) up until March 1940, but was replaced by the Republican Chinese flag with the formation of Wang Jingwei’s government. This suggests that the postcard was made prior to March 1940, but used some time thereafter. Text reading “qing zhu xin zhongyang zhengfu chengli” (Celebrating the founding of the new central government) has also been added above the figures, while the phrase “Ri-Hua qinshan” (Japanese-Chinese friendship) has been added to the boy in white.
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Ertong xin leyuan, Zhong-Ri chang qinshan (New paradise for children; China and Japan will forever be close)
This poster, almost certainly produced with the aim of encouraging civilians in occupied Beijing to embrace Japanese rule, includes many of the standard tropes of early occupied north China propaganda: a “new woman” with a male child; city walls; Japanese soldiers fraternising with Chinese infants; the “five-coloured flag” (wuseqi); and a sky filled with Japanese airplanes.
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Xin Zhonghua huabao (New China Pictorial) cover, April 1944
This cover from the Xin Zhonghua huabao (New China Pictorial) 6.4 (April 1944) shows an image of an unnamed Javanese woman harvesting rice. Harvesting had been a common theme of propaganda in areas conquered by the Japanese (including Manchukuo and China) since at least the early 1930s. 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. This magazine employed cover images of women from areas of Southeast Asia that had been occupied by Japan with increasing regularity over the course of 1943 and 1944, having previously focused on Chinese film celebrities.
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Group of villagers (survivors), Cambodia
This photograph is part of the collection held by the Agence Khmère de Presse (AKP) and the Ministry of Information of Cambodia. 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.
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Soldiers at Angkor Wat
This image shows two soldiers of the Kampuchea United Front for National Salvation (KUFNS, also known as FUNSK) [Front or Renakse] posing in front of Angkor Wat. 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.
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Empty lecture hall
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.
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Win-Win Monument carving
This photograph shows a small carving on the 117-metre-long engraved base of the Win-Win Monument. The the central figure in the carving (possibly Hun Sen) has been defaced. 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.
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RNG troops by a riverbank
A group of RNG soldiers walks along an unidentified river bank. Possibly part of the Rural Pacification (qingxiang) campaigns.
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Chihuo biji: Gongfei jishi xiaoshuo(A record of the Red Peril: A novel recording the deeds of the Communist bandits)
This book, almost certainly produced by the Japanese military, tells the story of communist violence against Chinese peasants in wartime Shanxi, and the escape of an anti-communist Chinese peasant girl to occupied Beijing. It was clearly written to discourage civilian support for the communist resistance in north China, and to foster peasant support for the newly-established PGROC early in the occupation. The weeping peasant woman is juxtaposed to the sinister “devil” that is international communism.
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Chu Minyi with film camera
The RNG foreign minister Chu Minyi tries his hand at filmmaking in this undated photograph. Next to him is (possibly) Chen Guoqi (a photographer for the RNG’s Central News Agency). The RNG Minister of Publicity, Mr Lin Baisheng, is on the far left of the image. This image was taken as Chu Minyi filmed a Cabinet meeting convened by Wang Jingwei in the summer of 1940. Newsreel footage of the event can be found here.
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Empty alleyway, Phnom Penh
This picture shows a small, empty alleyway littered with rubble in Phnom Penh. It was probably taken in the days following the city’s takeover in January 1979. 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.
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Win-Win Monument base
This photograph shows an empty section of the 117-metre-long engraved base of the Win-Win Monument, with traces that show some work has been done and subsequently removed. 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.