Abstract
In 1952, H. Maclear Bate wrote, ‘if any Government ever lacked an adequate propaganda organisation, it is Chiang Kai-shek’s … a clever propagandist would find an inexhaustible fund of material in Formosa which could be capitalised’, and he concluded by observing, ‘Never has so little been done with so much.’2 This chapter and the next will confront Bate’s criticism, and demonstrate that the ROC does have a propaganda organization, one that predates its move to the island of Taiwan. Although this organization is far from perfect, it is nevertheless ‘adequate’ given that it must perform in difficult circumstances. Moreover, the discussion will highlight how, in ‘selling Taiwan’, the propagandists are also actively reinforcing the ROC’s diplomatic endeavours.
“Please hear us.” I think that is the plea that ought to be coining across. “Please hear us. ”1
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Notes
Quoted in Philip M. Taylor, War and the Media: Propaganda and Persuasion in the Gulf War (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1992), p. 19.
Denis F. Simon, Taiwan, Technology Transfer and Transnationalism, University of California, PhD dissertation, 1980, p. 61.
Fred W. Riggs, Formosa Under Nationalist Rule (New York: Macmillan, 1952), p. 3.
Leonard A. Kusnitz, Public Opinion and Foreign Policy: America’s China Policy, 1949–1979 (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1984), p. 31.
Warren I. Cohen, ‘Ambassador Philip D. Sprouse on the Question of Recognition of the People’s Republic of China in 1949 and 1950’, Diplomatic History 2(2), 1978: 213–17 (214).
Stanley D. Bachrack, The Committee of One Million: ‘China Lobby’ Politics 1953–1971 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1976), pp. 215–16.
See Allan Gotlieb, ‘I’ll be with you in a minute, Mr. Ambassador’: The Education of a Canadian Diplomat in Washington (Toronto: Toronto University Press, 1991)
quoted in Robert Wolfe, Still Lying Abroad? On the Institution of the Resident Ambassador, Discussion Papers in Diplomacy, no. 33 (University of Leicester, 1997), p. 18.
In particular, see Kusnitz (1984) and T. Christopher Jesperson, American Images of China, 1931–1949 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1996)
then contrast these with studies of British press and public opinion — Brian Porter, Britain and the Rise of Communist China: a Study of British Attitudes, 1945–1954 (London: Oxford University Press, 1967)
and Zhongping Feng, The British Government’s China Policy, 1945–1950 (Keele: Ryburn, 1994).
Denis McQuail, Mass Communication Theory: An Introduction (Beverly Hills, Calif.: Sage, 1987), pp. 207–8.
Rosemary Foot, The Practice of Power: US Relations with China Since 1949 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995), p. 83
Eric C. Chiang, Director of the Information Division (TECRO, Chicago), interviewed 19 September 1997.
Garth Alexander, Silent Invasion: The Chinese in Southeast Asia (London: Macdonald, 1973), p. 175.
See Jasper Becker, Hungry Ghosts: China’s Secret Famine (London: John Murray, 1997).
The best account of this is Lai Tse-han, Ramon H. Myers, and Wei Wou, A Tragic Beginning (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1991).
W. A. Swanberg, Luce and his Empire (New York: Scribners, 1972), p. 214.
See Robert p. Newman, ‘Clandestine Chinese Nationalist Efforts to Punish their American Detractors’, Diplomatic History 7 (3), 1983: 205–22.
Patacharin Mayakarn, Chinese Assimilation in Thailand, 1910–1960, unpublished MA dissertation, Department of Politics, University of Nottingham (1998), p. 7.
Shih-shan Henry Tsai, The Chinese Experience in America (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1986), p. 135.
Dr James Ng, ‘Chinese Settlement in New Zealand–Past, Present and Future’, speech to the Wellington Chinese Association, 21 June 1996.
Lynn Pan, Sons of the Yellow Emperor (London: Mandarin, 1991), p. 220.
Joaquin Beltran Antolin, ‘The Chinese in Spain’, in Gregor Benton and Frank N. Pieke (eds), The Chinese in Europe (London: Macmillan, 1998), p. 216.
Frank N. Pieke and Gregor Benton, Chinese in the Netherlands (University of Leeds: Leeds East Asia Papers, no. 27, 1995), p. 9.
See Gary and Ming-Yeh Rawnsley, ‘Regime Transition and the Media in Taiwan’, in V. Randall (ed.), Democratization and the Media (London: Frank Cass, 1998).
S. W. Grief (ed.), Immigration and National Identity in New Zealand (Dunmore Press, 1995), p. 186
See Hungdah Chiu, The Koo-Wang Talks and the Prospect of Building Constructive and Stable Relations Across the Taiwan Straits (Baltimore: University of Maryland Law School, 1993).
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© 2000 Gary D. Rawnsley
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Rawnsley, G.D. (2000). Diplomats, Propaganda and the Overseas Chinese. In: Taiwan’s Informal Diplomacy and Propaganda. Studies in Diplomacy. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781403905345_4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781403905345_4
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