My dad in action

My dad, Stephen R. MacKinnon, is a professor of modern Chinese history at Arizona State University.

This is why I lived in China as a child from 1979-81. At that time he was teaching, doing historical research, and working on a book with my mother.  He has also written about China coverage by American journalists in the 1930's and 40's.

Dad's main focus of late has been on the Sino-Japanese war, as well as the Chinese press in the 20s, 30s, and 40s, before the Communists took power in 1949. This weekend he is at Harvard for a historical workshop about newspapers in China from 1911-1949. 

The Chinese press was much more freewheeling during Republican China than after the communists came to power, but this was often because the government was weaker and more corrupt than for lack of efforts to control the press. My dad presented a paper today about the newspaper magnate Cheng Shewo. Cheng had to cultivate relationships with people in power in order to keep his papers operating, but he still had to deal with censorship and even arrest. My dad tells a great story:

"Cheng was arrested over ten times in the mid-1920's, so often that he hired a person who resembled him to sit near the front door of his office and act as decoy managing editor, thus giving Cheng time, when the police came, to flee out the back door."

Later, in the 1930's, when Cheng was running the Shanghai-based newspaper Li Bao (立報, which later moved to Taiwan), he dealt with censorship by leaving a blank space where the article should have been, underneath the original provocative headline.

Cool.

Comments

[Lisa Williams]

One thing I don't understand that maybe y'all could shed some light on is this: I understand why the Chinese are mad at the Japanese regarding past war crimes. But why has it come to a head now? What's different?

[Rebecca MacKinnon]

Lisa,
It's because Japan has recently published textbooks that don't acknowledge Japanese warcrimes, and Japanese politicians continue to visit memorials to Japan's war dead which include convicted war criminals. The Koreans are pissed off too. See: http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2005-05/27/content_3012603.htm
For one of many stories about why they're pissed. A google news search on "japanese war crimes" will bring you a large number of articles on the subject.

[Paul Denlinger]

There is a good article in today's Financial Times by Ian Buruma about some of the domestic factors in Japan which are making the Japanese take a fresh look at WWII.

http://news.ft.com/cms/s/fcf68ad0-cf15-11d9-8cb5-00000e2511c8.html

[Lisa Williams]

Thanks. My reading keeps referring to it but never saying "why". I think I need to subscribe to new stuff -- off to Global Voices!

[Kevin]

"It's because Japan has recently published textbooks that don't acknowledge Japanese warcrimes"

Correction. It'snot recently, but even since post WWII, Japan never ever did acknowledge Japanese invasion and murdered of Chinese in their textbook.

It get diluted and more diluted with each version of thier history text.

Frankly, the visit to the memorials is not big deal. It's realfor the visit that's affecting the relationship. Japan PM continues to visit the war memorial because of election promised to power group mostly children & supporters of convicted war criminals. These people are pushing for a greater Japan military power and they never admit WWII as invasion.