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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).
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Fengyang guniang (Maidens of Fengyang)
This woodcut, by an artist called Fang Wenxing, was reproduced in Zhonghua huabao (Chinese Pictorial) 1.4 (November 1943). The importance of the muke (woodcut) form to artistic practice in occupied China has been almost entirely overlooked in the literature. The muke form has hitherto been associated with the art of resistance in China, despite being an important part of “occupation” visual cultures as well.
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Signing of Japan-Manchukuo-China Joint Declaration
Flanked by courtiers, Zang Shiyi, the Manchukuo ambassador to the RNG (seated to the left), Noboyuki Abe, Japanese ambassador to the RNG (seated to the right), and Wang Jingwei (seated in the centre) sign 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. The flags of Japan, China and Manchukuo are on the wall behind the men.
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Empty Avenue, Phnom Penh
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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Villagers looking at a poster
This (probably staged) photograph shows a group of villagers looking at an illustrated poster about the Kampuchea United Front for National Salvation (KUFNS, also known as FUNSK) [Front or Renakse]. It is part of a series that describes the same group of villagers and soldiers. 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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Commercial street in Sihanoukville
This unattributed photograph shows a commercial street in Sihanoukville town centre in the mid 1960s, with one side of the street having a promenade with benches and lampposts, and shops on the opposite side, under an arcade. The photograph 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.
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Win-Win Monument bas-relief
This photograph provides a view of bas-relief on the 117-metre-long engraved base of the Win-Win Monument. It depicts the defection to Vietnam of the then Khmer Rouge officer Hun Sen in June 1977. One sees Hun Sen (dressed in Khmer Rouge garb) considering what may happen to him and his group of defectors (being killed) if they are caught by the Khmer Rouge. It also shows Hun Sen thinking about his wife who he left behind. 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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Medical team treating children
This unattributed photograph, showing a medical team treating children, was featured in the publication (French and English versions) entitled The People’s Republic of Kampuchea (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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Xin Zhonghua huabao (New China Pictorial) cover, May 1944
This cover image from the Xin Zhonghua huabao (New China Pictorial) 6.5 (May 1944) shows a photograph of two unnamed Burmese women. 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 conquered by Japan with increasing regularity over the course of 1943 and 1944, having previously focused on Chinese film celebrities.
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Ertong zuopin (works by children), II
This is a selection of images (most being pencil drawings) contributed to the magazine Ertong huakan (Children’s Pictorial) 9.10 (April 1941) by readers. The images offer a fascinating insight into the ways in which official ideas about the appearance of occupied China were reflected in the artwork of Chinese school children living in the RNG capital. Note the references to dawn, for example, the depictions of Japanese people, and the idyllic images of the Chinese countryside included in some of the drawings. Basketball remained a politically acceptable sport in occupied Nanjing despite its American provenance.
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Girls are all living in a dormitory [sic]
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: “They are doing their ‘home works’ [sic]”.
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Planting plum trees at Wang Jingwei’s tomb
RNG foreign minister Chu Minyi oversees the planting of young plum trees on Meihuashan (Plum Blossom Mount) in Nanjing, in the vicinity of Wang Jingwei’s tomb. The plum was (and remains) the national flower of the Republic of China, and the area around Wang Jingwei’s tomb was planted with plums as an act of patriotism after his death in late 1944. Very few photographs of Wang’s tomb survive.