Projecting a Fiction of the Nation State to the World: The Manzhouguo News Agency in Japanese-Occupied Northeast China, 1932–1945

Abstract

The chapter examines the Manzhouguo News Agency or the MNA (1932–1945) in Japanese-occupied Northeast China, Manchuria. It demonstrates that it played the central role for Japanese imperial authorities in their control of the information flow within and out of the area.

The MNA had two major duties. Its priority was overseas propaganda, and its creation demonstrated that the Japanese imperial authorities, including the Guandong Army, paid great attention to new norms of international politics in the age of the League of Nations, namely the principle of self-determination, and international public opinion as a moral force in international politics. The MNA’s second duty was to control information for internal and border security of the occupied area, and this aspect was strengthened after the Guandong Army achieved its territorial ambitions.

The MNA’s structure constantly changed. While this instability reflected changes of Japan’s strategic policy towards the area, it also demonstrated its dual function and inherent dilemma. It was an imperial agency whose main job was to project a fiction of an independent nation state of Manzhouguo. Even after Japan failed to gain support at the League in February 1933, it continued to see this fiction useful, especially to the Chinese elite and expatriates in the rest of China. The chapter suggests the MNA became a prototype of the information control for the Japanese Army in its creation of pro-Japan regimes in North China. The MNA’s international propaganda operation was absorbed by Tokyo-based Dōmei News Agency by the time the Sino-Japanese War began.