Chains and Arteries: Railways as Visual Propaganda during the Second Sino-Japanese War

Abstract

From the time of their invasion in 1931, the Japanese commenced railway construction in China on a large scale, not only to transport troops and supplies, but, just as importantly, to verify Japan’s achievements in “constructing” a new East Asia. To this end, Japanese and Manchurian propaganda images were replete with high-speed trains, as epitomes of the technological progress of the times. Conversely, a primary military goal of the Chinese government was the destruction of these very railroads. Thus, a variety of photographs and woodcut prints of the period depict scenes of Chinese combatants and civilians cooperating to destroy Japanese railways and trains, which were taken to represent the Japanese invader’s machinery of violence. In this context, railroads and other implements of modernity were implicated by war, and both sides were fully cognizant of the capacity of railroads to conquer space. The battle over the sovereignty of these railways, then, whether to build or destroy them, signified an expansion of military and political power. Focusing on the different ways in which railroads were represented in this conflict, this paper explores how different visual narratives pointed to power relationships of the time, either to validate or subvert existing social governance.