Dabei Novaya Gazeta And Colonial Rule Of The Manchukuo

Founded on October1,1922and ended in September1944, Dabei Novaya Gazetahas a publication history of up to22years in Harbin. During this period, the Japanesecolonists penetrated colonial activity from the South manchuria to the North manchuria,until they launched the September18thIncident to completely occupy the wholeNortheast China, and establish the Manchukuo puppet power. The22years witnessedJapan’s gradual pressing toward until the complete annexation of Northeast China andestablishment of colonial rule, and also witnessed the Northeastern people’s beingfearless of sacrifice and desperate resistance. Dabei Novaya Gazeta recorded thisunusual history vividly and reproduced the historical scene of military invasion,political control, economic plundering and cultural penetration by Japan to NortheastChina since the modern times.Centered on the22years’ development course of Dabei Novaya Gazeta, thispaper is focused on the description of the momentum building of this newspaper forthe Japanese invasion and for the colonial publicity activity of Manchukuo to present afalse appearance of peace with news, editorials and cultural and art works full ofcolonial color. The main body of this paper is divided into four parts.The first part is the main introduction to the establishment background and basicinformation at the beginning of establishment of Dabei Novaya Gazeta. The modernpress in Northeast China sprouted in late Qing Dynasty. In August1899, the Russiancolonists established the earliest Russian newspaper New Frontier in Lvshun. Later,with continuous invasion of Russian colonists, by the end of19thcentury and thebeginning of20th, the Russian and Chinese newspapers established by Russian peoplewere popular in three provinces in the northeast of China. Under stimulation of foreignnewspapers, the countrymen’s newspaper industry in Northeast China was finallyestablished after end of Russo-Japanese War. In December1905, the first modern countrymen’s newspaper Northeast Bulletin in Northeast China was founded byShengjing General Zhao Erxun. The modern countrymen’s newspaper industry inNortheast China started to spring up. In the important stage of germination of moderncountrymen’s newspaper industry in Northeast China, another imperialist country–Japan also carried out news invasion into Northeast China. The news invasion ofmodern Japan on Northeast China dated from Yingkou News in1903. AfterRusso-Japanese War, Japan started to establish newspapers and magazines in a largescale to build up the momentum for its colonial invasion. In this process, on October1,1922, Nakajima Naoin established Chinese daily paper–Dabei Novaya Gazeta inHarbin; after establishment of this newspaper, it immediately became a powerful toolfor Japan to carry out cultural invasion on Northeast China.The second part is the main introduction to the operative management andpublication of Dabei Novaya Gazeta during the Manchukuo period. After “September18Incident” broke out in1931, in order to control direction of public opinions,Japanese colonists immediately forced countrymen to terminate or revise theirnewspaper when they conquered one place; meanwhile, they spared no efforts tosupport the newspaper of Japanese puppet regime for the purpose of occupying newspropaganda position. After establishment of Manchukuo, through publicly establishingnews agency, organizing “newspaper association”, promulgating laws and other means,Japan made the journalism of Manchukuo placed under close monitoring of Japanesecolonists; later, through3times of news reorganization, Japan finally established theso-called “new newspaper system” to make whole journalism of Manchukuo underdirect control of government. Due to great change in external environment of pressindustry in Northeast China, after “September18Incident”, some changes happened inDabei Novaya Gazeta in operation management, publication and distribution, and evenpage layout, content, and style. On one hand, under the support of Japanese puppetregime, the circulation of this newspaper quickly increased, and the layout wascontinuously expanded. On the other hand, in order to cater to Japanese colonial rules,Dabei Novaya Gazeta faithfully delivered the official decree, and the content of newspaper was changed from active to single and the newspaper gradually lost itsuniqueness and readability. After the Pacific War broke out in1941, Japanese puppetregime had a stricter “news control”, and Dabei Novaya Gazeta also had more seriousindividuality deficiency; until September1944, after the policy of “one country onenewspaper” was introduced by Japanese puppet regime, Dabei Novaya Gazeta whichhad experienced22years finally stopped its publication.The third part is the main introduction to the colonial publicity of Dabei NovayaGazeta in four aspects. At the beginning of establishment of Manchukuo, DabeiNovaya Gazeta made use of advantages of press and actively coordinated with officialpropaganda of Manchukuo. On one hand, it greatly infused the state concept of“Manchukuo” and the national concept of “harmonious5nationalities” to northeastpeople; while it maintained Manchukuo colonization, it also wanted to cut apart theaffection tie between northeast people and the country so as to make them finallyaccept “Manchukuo” as their country and then completely submit themselves to rule ofJapanese puppet regime. On the other hand, this newspaper utilized large quantity oflength to introduce the Japanese army and puppet army’s achievements about“suppress bandits” as well as development situation about Chinese traditionalConfucianism and various kinds of religions; through publicizing anti-Japanesesoldiers’ miserable ending and religious doctrine, it attempted to completely remoldnortheast people as loyal and obedient people of Manchukuo via gentle and toughmeans.In the fourth part, the author introduces the propaganda activities of DabeiNovaya Gazeta to agitate the Northeastern people to assist the Japanese colonialinvasion and advocate colonial culture after the July7thIncident.After the July7Incident of1937, with increasing expansion of scale of Japanese colonial war, therewere more and more propaganda content about colonial war in Dabei Novaya Gazeta;before this newspaper stopped its publication in1944, the news report, comments, andliterary works about advocating colonial war had become the main content of thisnewspaper. Except for great advocacy on war, in this period, Dabei Novaya Gazeta also coordinated with Japanese puppet regime to build colonialist culture system anddevelop activities of Manchukuo colonialist culture. In order to realize this objective,Dabei Novaya Gazeta actively publicized various construction “achievements” sinceestablishment of Manchukuo, enhanced the propaganda on “Japanolatry” slaveideology, and fully exerted its propaganda function as press, so as to provide assistancefor building Japanese culture-centered colonialist culture full of colony color.Meanwhile, this newspaper paid special attention to young people’s ideologicalpropaganda work, and it took the “second-generation citizen” and “third-generationcitizen” of Manchukuo as objective to carry out the targeted colonial propagandaactivities.By investigating up to22years’ development course of Dabei Novaya Gazeta inHarbin, and its different characteristics in different historical periods in newspapercontents, column setting and propaganda style, we can not only trace back thedevelopment course of Northeastern newspaper industry in the modern times, but canalso further exhibit the historical details on the cultural invasion of Japan to NortheastChina since the modern times, so as to provide reference for the deep andcomprehensive understanding of Japan’s invasion to China.