XXX Международный конгресс ИИСАА. 19–21 июня 2019 г. Т. 2

Секция XV 50 XXX Международный Конгресс по источниковедению и историографии стран Азии и Африки Nikolay Samoylov (FAAS, St Petersburg University, St Petersburg) “Paper Tigers”: Visual Images of the USA in China at the Time of the Korean and Indochina Wars 1 Visual images have a great impact on the forming of any nation’s perceptions of other peoples. This is particularly typical of the countries where literacy rate and levels of education are not very high. Politicians are verywell aware of the role of visual images and their significance for political propaganda, therefore, work hard to construct effective images of themselves and “the others”. In the 1950s — 1970s in the People’s Republic of China, visual images (portraits, posters, cartoons) played a very important role in mass propaganda andwere used to introduce official ideas into the public consciousness. In October 1950, just one year after the People’s Republic was founded, the Chinese People’s Volunteer forces stepped in the Korean War (1950–1953) to support North Korean communists. The Korean War marked a period of strong rise in patriotism among Chinese people. After the beginning of the Korean War, the USAofficially became China’s main foreign opponent and most vicious enemy. The slogan “Resist America and Support Korea!” was very popular in mass propaganda and was supplemented by another one: “Defend Home and Motherland!” The war time provided numerous opportunities to demonstrateAmericans and other “Western imperialists” in an extremely disgusting guise.American soldiers murdering and looting in Korea became popular characters of Chinese posters and caricatures. Sometimes ugly and revolting military men on the Chinese caricatures resembled the US President Harry Truman or general Douglas MacArthur, the commander of the American troops in Korea. A popular theme in political propaganda of that time was the accusation that the USAwas engaged in bacteriological warfare against Chinese. During the Second Indochina War (1957–1975), China not only watched the US military activities south of its borders (in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia), but tried to support anti-American forces in that region. A potential spillover of hostilities into the Chinese territory seemed rather possible, as the PRC had taken Democratic Republic of Vietnam side. The struggle of the peoples of Indochina (especially the Vietnamese) against the American intervention provided inspiration to a lot of Chinese artists in the 1960s — early 1970s, and their posters strongly influenced the popular consciousness leading to the rise of patriotism. The slogans: “Down with American imperialism!” and “American imperialism is the common enemy of all the people in the world!” became very usual at that time. Lots of Chinese posters of the 1960–1970s depicted Vietnamese partisans who heroically fought against the American invaders and smashed them. 1 The reported study was funded by RFBR and DFG according to the research project №17–21–49001 “Chinese perceptions of Russia and theWest during the 20th century: changes, continuities and contingencies”.