China’s image in U.S. propaganda during the Pacific War era

Abstract

After the outbreak of the Pacific War, the U.S. government’s propaganda agency, the Office of War Information (OWI), set up a branch in China which became responsible for propaganda toward China. The OWI’s China branch portrayed China as a rising hero in the anti-Japanese resistance through a series of propaganda programs to promote U.S. wartime goals and policy goals in China. This image of China had three distinguishing types: (1) China as a heroic nation with all citizens engaged in resistance; (2) China as a major world power shouldering international responsibilities; (3) China as being on a “revolutionary” path modeled after the United States. The United States tried to lift the morale of the Chinese masses by highlighting wartime China’s national image, in addition to inculcating the Chinese people with a great power consciousness and ideals of international community. To achieve U.S. national interests, the OWI’s constructed image of China was deliberately edited in a way that did not completely reflect China’s reality, exposing the limits of U.S. understanding and its imagination of China.