ANGRY STATES: MAINLAND CHINESE VIEWS OF JAPAN SINCE 1949 This dissertation is submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Anthony David Brooks Trinity Hall, Cambridge January 7, 2013 Copyright © 2013 Anthony David Brooks All rights reserved To Mike Lloyd Without whose support this project would not have been possible Declaration This dissertation is the result of my own work and includes nothing which is the outcome of work done in collaboration except where specifically indicated in the text. The dissertation does not exceed the word limit for the Asian and Middle Eastern Studies degree committee. It is 80,000 words long. Notes on style Chinese and Japanese names are not italicised and are given with the surname first, so Mao Zedong’s family name is Mao and not Zedong. Other Chinese and Japanese terms are italicised, and written in pinyin and romaji respectively. In the People’s Republic pinyin is normally written in lower case. However, for ease of reference this study uses sentence-style capitalisation for the titles of films, books, documents, papers and texts (in pinyin), as well as for place names. For the sake of clarity, words commonly used in English are usually chosen in preference to their Chinese and Japanese counterparts; for example “Taipei” (a city in Taiwan), is used in preference to the Chinese Taibei. A character glossary of the most important Chinese terms is provided. A list of abbreviations used in the text is at the beginning of the bibliography. Dates in the footnotes are presented in abbreviated British format, such that August 15, 1945 becomes 15/8/45. Many of the individuals interviewed for this project did so on the condition that they remain anonymous. Interviews in this study therefore follow the format used by Perry Link in his book The Uses of Literature: Life in the Socialist Chinese Literary System (2000), whereby the name of the interviewee is included only when he or she agrees to be named. Full interview transcripts are available on request. iv Acknowledgements First and foremost I would like to thank my supervisor, Dr. Barak Kushner. Without his direction, advice and encouragement, I would never have been able to write this dissertation. Any merit that the thesis has is in no small part due to the detailed critical feedback which I received from Dr. Kushner on each of my many drafts. Other people also patiently read through various versions of the manuscript and made many valuable comments, including Dr. Lily Chang, Donald Fraser and Andraz Melansek. Special thanks also go to my advisor Dr. John Swenson-Wright for his suggestions on tackling the primary literature, as well as to Professor Rana Mitter and his “China’s War with Japan” research group, who helped to shape my rapidly evolving views on the research topic. Rana Mitter, Caroline Rose and Amy King invited me to conferences in Oxford, Leeds and Bristol, where I was not only made to feel most welcome, but I was also given important critical feedback on my work. I am most grateful to both Trinity Hall and the Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies for the award of generous travel grants, which allowed me to make research trips to China and also to present my work at Harvard University. Finally, I also owe a great debt to the following individuals in China and elsewhere who gave generously of their time: John Armitage, Henry Chen, Chen Rihua, Chen Xiaoni, Chen Yanshi, Ding Xiangli, Adam Dunnett, John Feng, Gao Yu, Gao Haoqing, Gui Xiaotao, Guo Dingping, He Sai, Hu Cheng, Jin Feng, Kong Yang, Ioana Kraft, Lai Junfei, Li Baiyang, Li Bin, Li Chen, Li Jia, Li Qinyan, Li Tingjiang, Li Xing, Li Ying, Li Yong, Lian Degui, Lin Wei, Lin Xiaoguang, Ling Hai, Joshua Harper, Liu Cheng, Liu Hua, Liu Jianping, Liu Qiong, Lu Peng, Dirk Moens, Sherzod Muminov, Nikolay Murashkin, Pang Liang, Rao Junfei, Ren Kang, Stefan Sack, Jonathan Scott, Jorn Seiero, Michael O’Sullivan, Su Weijun, Wang Dongke, Wang Le, Wang Min, Wang Ping, Wang Xinsheng, Wu Shiyou, Xie Li, Xie Ye, Xu Bin, Xu Hailong, Yan Haisong, Yang Fan, Yang Haobo, Yao Xiaoshu, Yu Chunyu, Yu Tiejun, Charlie Valonso, Kazuyuki Yamazaki, Zheng Zheng, Zhou Ke and Zhu Xiaolong. v Abstract This thesis presents a study of Chinese views of Japan since the foundation of the People’s Republic of China in 1949. The introduction summarises the main aims of the thesis, which are to compare and contrast the way in which different “institutions” (such as the Chinese media) have presented Japan to mass audiences from a historical perspective. The introduction also describes the theoretical models used and outlines the most important recent scholarship on the research topic. Chapter one offers an overview of elite representations of Japan, by concentrating on critical junctures where the Chinese leadership’s views of Japan changed. The role of the patriotic education campaign is explored, as well as the hypothesis that since 1949 Chinese Communist Party leaders have always been intensely interested in Japan. The thesis then moves on to four chapters, which analyse how Japan is presented in key institutions. Chapter two on war museums suggests that national and provincial party officials have frequently clashed over the way in which memory of the 1937–45 Anti-Japanese War is depicted. Chapter two also examines the rationale for the rash of museum building during the 1980s. Chapter three concentrates on textbooks, but also deals with the way in which classroom discourses on conflict with Japan are used as a means of emphasising selected government policies. Furthermore, I suggest that the way in which textbook compilers have sought to portray Japan in schools has shown remarkably little variation over the past 60 years. Chapter four analyses war films. My aim here is to explain both why, as in textbooks, the war is used as a vehicle for pursuing unrelated policy objectives, and also why conflict with Japan is still virtually the only acceptable means of portraying that country on celluloid. Chapter five deals with newspapers, and as in chapter two, I find that views of Japan at the national and provincial level are frequently at variance. Chapter six concludes the thesis and summarises its findings, as well as making suggestions for further research. vi Contents Introduction .................................................................................................................... 1 Chapter 1 ...................................................................................................................... 21 Elite Views of Japan ..................................................................................................... 21 Chapter 2 ...................................................................................................................... 67 Anti-Japanese War Museums: Unit 731 ....................................................................... 67 Chapter 3 .................................................................................................................... 109 Education and Textbooks ........................................................................................... 109 Chapter 4 .................................................................................................................... 159 Anti-Japanese War Films ........................................................................................... 159 Chapter 5 .................................................................................................................... 211 Media Representations of Japan ................................................................................ 211 Conclusion ................................................................................................................. 267 Reference Matter ........................................................................................................ 272 Glossary ..................................................................................................................... 273 Select Bibliography .................................................................................................... 283 vii Figures Figure 1. People’s Daily article showing support for the Japanese people framed by news highly critical of the Japanese government (7/7/53, p. 4) .............. 30 Figure 2. Two photographs of former Japanese barracks at Pingfang ............... 100 Figure 3. The entrance to the Unit 731 museum ................................................ 100 Figure 4. The “atonement for Japanese crimes” memorial at Unit 731, unveiled in 2010............................................................................................................ 103 Figure 5. The new commemoration corridor at Unit 731 .................................. 105 Figure 6. Chinese lower middle school history textbooks showing almost identical images of students protesting at the GMD’s refusal to fight the Japanese in 1935............................................................................................................ 118 Figure 7. “A little Eighth Route Army soldier” (xiao ba lu) Elementary School Language Textbook, 2000, vol. 2, p. 34 ..................................................... 153 Figure 8. Yu Lai is interrogated by Japanese soldiers. Elementary School Language Textbook, 2010, vol. 4.2, p. 66 .................................................. 156 Figure 9. A scene from the film Underground War (Didao zhan, 1965) showing Japanese troops cowering in the face of a Communist guerrilla