A Study Of The Hongbao Office Of The General Affairs Department Of Pseudo-Manchukuo

The Hongbao Office is a department of the puppet Manchu government under the PseudoManchu General Affairs Office,which was formally set up in 1937 to be responsible for propaganda,intelligence and public opinion monitoring.Its embryonic form in the pseudoManchu regime is the Hongfa Division of the Pseudo-Manchu Zizheng Bureau established in1932,after the dissolution of the Zizheng Bureau,which existed for only four months,the Pseudo-Manchu General Affairs Office established the Qingbao Office in 1933,responsible for pseudo-Manchu propaganda and intelligence-related matters,and then renamed the Office of Hongbao in 1937,with further expansion of its powers.In 1941,after the reform of the pseudo-Manchukuo institutions,the Hongbao Office entered the stage of "Grand Hongbao Office" and became the absolute leading organization of the pseudo-Manchukuo ideology and culture,public opinion and propaganda,with unified jurisdiction over the pseudo-Manchukuo press,publishing,communication,broadcasting,film,literature and art.As the central institution of ideological and cultural rule in pseudo-Manchukuo,the expansion of the Hongbao Office means the step-by-step strengthening of the cultural dictatorship of pseudo-Manchukuo,and its activities reveal the aggressive ambitions of Japanese imperialism which it tried so hard to conceal.This paper takes the Hongpao Office of the Pseudo-Manchukuo General Affairs Office as the object of study,and analyzes the historical history,organizational structure,and main activities of the Hongpao Office of the Pseudo-Manchukuo General Affairs Office using historical materials such as original newspapers and pseudo-Manchukuo "official" documents,and then conducts an overall evaluation of the Hongbao Office and analyzes its characteristics.The main body of the paper consists of four parts:The first part is the historical evolution of the Hongbao Office from its gradual establishment to its eventual expansion.The first part is a character-based tracing of the rightwing social organization stage of South Manchu Railway Company,Ltd.and focuses on its "parent body",the Autonomous Guidance Department;Secondly,it provides a detailed and continuous overview of the 14-year history of the Hongbao Office in terms of name changes,including the period of the Hongfa Office,the period of the Information Service,and the period of the Hongbao Office.The second part mainly outlines the organizational structure of the Hongbao Office.The main part of this section includes the operational structure of the central section before and after its restructuring,as well as the main experiences and personalities of its chiefs,including Joji Miyawaki,Kazuo Horiuchi and Tomio Muto,in order to gain a perspective on the essential attributes of the Office under their leadership.In addition,this section provides a stereoscopic view of the organization itself by examining the structure of the local Hongbao system and the local activities carried out under the direction of the Hongbao Office.The third part discusses the activities of the Hongbao Office as the axis of its work.It mainly includes the propaganda work directly and indirectly promoted by the Office as a propaganda organization through the publication of important "national policies" and the instruction of propaganda techniques;As a supervisory organization,it supervised the "Manchurian Hongbao Association","Manchurian Cinema Association","Manchurian Affairs Office" and other “Hongbao organizations”;as a cultural ruling organization,it controlled the publishing,press,broadcasting,film and literature of the pseudo-Manchurians;as an intelligence agency,it carried out intelligence gathering and local propaganda activities,etc.The fourth part is an influential assessment of the Hongbao Office.In terms of propaganda,the Hong Press Office tightly controlled the propaganda business in pseudo-Manchukuo,making it an instrument of colonial rule;in terms of culture,the Office restricted the freedom of literary development,seriously hindering the development and progress of culture in northeastern China;in terms of politics,the Office played a negative role in consolidating Japanese colonial rule by propagating colonial ideas and adapting itself to the Japanese war of aggression against China.