Item
Minguo xinzheng (New government for the Republic)
This poster was almost certainly produced to coincide with the founding of the PGROC in December 1937. The visual trope of the rising sun and city gates of Beijing emitting light are clearly reminiscent of Manchukuo propaganda. Note also the references to a tattered Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) flag, with its “white sun” emblem. The replacement of this flag with the “five coloured flag ” (wuseqi), which was revived by the PGROC in 1937, was indicative of a general approach under this administration to discredit Nationalist ideologies in favour of more conservative, Confucian ideas. Note also the rather ambitious designs that this regime had on the rest of China (the man is planting his flag on China as a whole, rather than the patchwork of territory in north China over which the PGROC actually ruled).
Read More
Item
Huan women Dong Ya ren benlai de mianmu (Restore to we East Asians our original countenance)
This unattributed print was produced in a special 1941 booklet commemorating Wang Jingwei’s visit to Japan in June of that year. The phrase “Huan wo Dong Ya ren benlai de mianmu” (Restore to we East Asians our original countenance) is a deliberate play on the expression “Huan wo heshan” (Return to us the rivers and mountains). The latter was probably the single most commonly used phrase in the wartime propaganda of the resistance. The print is taken from Huang Qingshu (ed), Wang zhuxi fang Ri jinian huakan (Special pictorial in commemoration of Chairman Wang’s visit to Japan) (Nanjing: Xuanchuanbu, 1941).