News Under Fire: China's Propaganda against Japan in the English-Language Press, 1928-1941

News under Fire: China’s Propaganda against Japan in the English-Language Press, 1928–1941 is the first comprehensive study of China’s efforts to establish an effective international propaganda system during the Sino-Japanese crisis. It challenges the notion of Chinese passivity in international propaganda and demonstrates how the fractured government was able to carry out an effective propaganda scheme in spite of Japan’s advanced international news network and the general Western bias against China’s nationalist foundations. By retrieving the long neglected history of English-language papers published in the treaty ports, Shuge Wei reviews a multilayered and often chaotic English-language media environment in China, and demonstrates its vital importance in defending China’s sovereignty. Chinese bilingual elites played an important role in linking the party-led propaganda system with the treaty-port press. Yet the development of propaganda institution did not foster the realization of individual ideals. As the Sino-Japanese crisis deepened, the war machine absorbed their hopes of maintaining a liberal information order.