Japanese Military Controls Over One Us Journalist, John B. Powell, in Shanghai During the Sino

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Japanese Military Controls Over One Us Journalist, John B. Powell, in Shanghai During the Sino THE MILITARY VERSUS THE PRESS: JAPANESE MILITARY CONTROLS OVER ONE U.S. JOURNALIST, JOHN B. POWELL, IN SHANGHAI DURING THE SINO-JAPANESE WAR, 1937-1941 A Thesis Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School at the University of Missouri In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Master of Arts By YOU LI Dr. Betty Houchin Winfield, Thesis Supervisor DECEMBER 2008 The undersigned, appointed by the dean of the Graduate School, have examined the Military versus Press: JAPANESE MILITARY CONTROLS OVER ONE U.S. JOURNALIST, JOHN B. POWELL, IN SHANGHAI DURING THE SINO-JAPANESE WAR, 1937-1941 presented by You Li, a candidate for the degree of Master of Journalism and hereby certify that, in their opinion, it is worthy of acceptance. Professor Betty Winfield Professor Yong Volz Professor Charles Davis Professor Mitchell McKinney ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This project originated from a class paper for History of Mass Media. It was later presented at the American Journalism Historian Association’s 26th annual conference. I am extremely grateful to Dr. Betty Houchin Winfield, thesis supervisor, for her encouragement, guidance, hours of time and patience. Without her help, this project would have never been completed. I am also indebted to Dr. Yong Volz, a thesis committee member, for her generous advice and expertise in Chinese history. I am also grateful to Dr. Charles N. Davis and Mitchell S. McKinney, thesis committee members, for their work and assistance. ii TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS……………………………………………………….......ii LIST OF ILLUSTRATION…………………………………………………………...iv ABSTRACT……………………………………………...…………………………....v INTRODUCTION…………………………..…………………………………………1 CHAPTERS: 1. FOREIGN PUBLICATIONS IN SEMI-COLONIAL CHINA: WHEN THE FREE PRESS OPERATED IN A MILITARY ZONE ….……………...10 2. JOHN B. POWELL AND THE CHINA WEEKLY REVIEW: AN INDEPENDENT AMERICAN JOURNALIST AND A SHANGHAI JOURNAL …...………….…………………………………….33 3. WARTIME PRESS IN SHANGHAI BECAME CASUALTY OF THE SINO-JAPANESE WAR …………………………………..……….....68 4. THE JAPANESE MILITARY PARALYZED JOHN B. POWELL AND THE CHINA WEEKLY REVIEW………………………………………........109 5. MILITARY CONTROLS INDEPENDENT PRESS AND JOURNALISTS OF NEUTRAL STATES IN A WAR WITH THE OTHER.………………..…142 APPENDIX ..……………………………………………………………………….156 BIBLIOGRAPHY.…………………………………………………………………..157 VITA ………………………………………………………………………………..165 iii LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Tab le Page Selected foreign publications in Shanghai in 1935 76-77 Patterns 1, 2 and 3 148 iv THE MILITARY VERSUS THE PRESS: JAPANESE MILITARY CONTROLS OVER ONE U.S. JOURNALIST, JOHN B. POWELL, IN SHANGHAI DURING THE SINO-JAPANESE WAR, 1937-1941 You Li Dr. Betty Houchin Winfield, Thesis Supervisor ABSTRACT Military controls over journalism and journalists during wartime have long existed in various forms. As multinational relations become more complex during a war, the military controls can extend beyond the journalists of warring countries to journalists of neutral countries. This thesis uses a case study to answer why and how the military controlled independent journalists and publications of the neutral states. Specifically, this thesis investigates why and how the Japanese military controlled one independent U.S. journalist John B. Powell and his journal The China Weekly Review in Shanghai during the second Sino-Japanese War, August 1937 through December 1941. Powell’s case exemplified the dilemma facing independent journalists of neutral states in a foreign war: they report a foreign battlefield with no institutional protection or logistical support from their home countries, while encountering severe military controls from the warring countries. From this research emerges a new pattern, in which nation A’s military controls nation B’s journalists in a war with nation C (ABC pattern). v INTRODUCTION Many years ago, British scholar Philip Knightley used Senator Hiram Johnson’s quote (1917) for the title of a book: “The first casualty when war comes is truth.”1 Journalists who attempt to convey the truth are also the victims when war intrudes. This was especially true when Japan attacked Shanghai’s “native city” on August 7, 1937.2 Although the European and the American governments showed concern about the incident, none intended to defend China.3 The American residents in Shanghai, however, were quite outspoken.4 John B. Powell, the managing editor of an English-language journal in Shanghai, The China Weekly Review, strongly and courageously condemned the Japanese assault. Powell later wrote that he planned to “bring home what I saw in the East … to warn our people and government of Japan’s aggression”5 and “to fight with all our might for victory.”6 Powell’s journalistic 1 Senator Hiram Johnson, preface to The First Casualty, by Phillip Knightley (New York and London: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1976), i. 2 Hollington K. Tong, China and the World Press (N/A, 1948), 23. 3 Youli Sun, China and the Origins of the Pacific War (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1993), 92. 4 Tong, China and the World Press, 26. 5 John Benjamin Powell, My 25 Years in China, chapter 30, in C3662 Papers, 1910-1952 (Henceforth, JBPP), F 122. Western Historical Manuscript Collection, University of Missouri, Columbia (Henceforth, WHMC). 6 Powell, quoted in one essay by the Victory Service League, 1942-1945. F 1, JBPP, 1. Powell credited the quotations at the end of the essay by saying: “the above statement of my recommendations to the American people is correct and is hereby authorized for quotation by the 1 ambitions conflicted with the Japanese military interference. The Japanese pressured the Chinese Nationalist Party to suppress liberal newspapers and anti-Japanese speech, including that of the foreign nationals.7 In December 1941, when the Japanese overran Shanghai, they captured Powell, along with other foreign journalists. With little support from the U.S. or the Chinese government, Powell was imprisoned in the Japanese camp for six months. During that time, Powell lost 85 pounds, one foot, and much of the other from gangrene.8 He never fully recovered after returning to the U.S. in 1942, and died five years later. Powell was just one among many other foreign journalists, who before 1937 went to China for personal adventures and started their own journalistic enterprises, but later found themselves trapped in chaotic international conflicts when East Asia went to war. Those foreign journalists found themselves alone on the other side of the world: they covered multinational conflicts in China with no logistical support, physical protection, or institutional assistance. Moreover, Powell, as well as the others, faced a more complicated publishing environment in Asia, where the Chinese, Japanese, Americans, and Europeans competed for power. This thesis explores the Japanese military suppression of the American-owned English periodicals in China through a case study on the reporting experience of one such journalist, John B. Powell, in Shanghai during the second Victory Service League.” 7 William W. Y. Leong, “The Effects of Censorship and Japanese Pressure on the Chinese and Foreign Press in China” (M.A. thesis, University of Missouri-Columbia, 1938), 129. 8 Tong, China and the World Press, 24. 2 Sino-Japanese Conflict, from August 7, 1937, when Japan attacked Shanghai, to December 7, 1941, when Japan fully controlled Shanghai and sealed all foreign publications that were not subsidized by the Japanese. On December 7, 1941, after Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, and Philippines, the U.S. immediately declared war on Japan. This period can be characterized as a queasy moment of political disorders and economic competitions, when a regional crisis between China and Japan escalated into a full-scale war across the Asian-Pacific area. The need to win dominated each country’s national agenda, regardless of whether its government was authoritarian, militaristic, or democratic. Under such circumstances, the Japanese military in China manipulated foreign journalists and their publications. This research asks primarily why and how the Japanese military controlled John B. Powell and the Review in Shanghai during the Sino-Japanese War from 1937 to 1941. The analysis highlights three aspects: John B. Powell, who represented the American independent journalists in China, the Japanese military controls over the press, and the wartime environment in Shanghai. “Independent American journalists in China” refers to those who worked for the American-owned English periodicals that were published and circulated primarily in China. Most studies have not defined “the foreign press and journalists in China” clearly. Categorized by the ownerships and operating locations, the foreign press in China included: the Chinese-owned English-language publications, such as the China Press;9 the foreign-owned Chinese-language publications, such as the Chinese Global 9 Note: According to “The China Press” in the English Language Learning, July, 2003, Thomas Millard established the China Press in 1911. In 1918, a British Jewish businessman Edward Ezra 3 Magazine;10 the foreign-owned news bureaus in China, such as Reuters and The Associated Press; the foreign-owned publications with overseas correspondents in China, such as The New York Times and the Manchester Guardian; and the foreign-owned English-language publications headquartered and circulated mainly in China, such as the Review. Among those categories, the foreign-owned English-language publications that originated in China even though they claimed to be independent from
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