Imagethief likes Chinese propaganda posters. People who have seen me republish images from Stefan Landsberger's great Chinese propaganda poster website will be familiar with this inclination. I like to think that my appreciation of these posters extends beyond the usual foreigner fascination with revolutionary kitsch (although I have that too). As a communication professional, propaganda is a subject of more than passing interest to me. Aside from appreciating the art itself, I am interested in the iconography and symbolism, and, to the extent I can understand it, the language. It's not just Chinese propaganda. Second World War propaganda, from all sides, is also something I've been interested in for a long time. I once projected Leni Riefenstahl's "Triumph of the Will" on the wall of my living room in Singapore. Now you know what kinds of hobbies PR people have. Of course, I also scuba dive*, but we'll save that for next time.

So I was pleased to find in a bookstore in Shanghai last weekend the Taschen publishing house's book of Chinese propaganda posters which is titled, fittingly enough, Chinese Propaganda Posters. (This isn't Stefan Landsberger's own book, though he did write a foreword for it.) So I picked the book up for the rather bare coffee table in my temporary apartment in Shanghai. (Previous items: a bunch of shockingly bad DVD's left by the previous tenant.)

I was somewhat surprised to see the book on sale. I suppose I shouldn't have been. Reproductions of many of the posters are easily available in any tourist area. And they are, after all, Chinese government communication even though some of them invoke events the Chinese government might prefer to forget. But the book is mostly reproductions of the images themselves. There isn't much text aside from three brief forewords and nice translations of the original poster captions and contents. There is very little deconstruction of the posters as art or communication forms. That's what reduces this book from the great reference work it could have been into a nice conversation piece for sinophiles and propaganda fiends. In terms of relating the posters to historic events and providing background information, Mr. Landsberger's site is more useful.

The back of the book has a timeline of significant events from China's 20th century history, which is presented, as is the rest of the book, in English, Japanese and French (notably, not in Chinese). I was interested to see that in all three languages a few items had been delicately redacted with black market pen. The redaction was not, however, thorough. You could still read through the ink. Here are the items that were redacted:
  • 1950: Chinese troops invade Korea, starting the Korean War.
  • On 1 March [1950] Chiang Kai Shek becomes president of Taiwan. General MacArthur places Taiwan under US protection.
  • 1951: The People's Liberation Army invades Tibet.
  • 1998: Followers of the FLG movement demonstrate in Beijing in support of religious freedom.
Items left untouched included information about the death toll of the Great Leap Forward, other mentions of Chiang Kai Shek, comments on party purges, and such. It's always interesting to see what makes the cut and what doesn't. Arguably, all the redacted items are things the Chinese government, from their point of view, might consider errors of fact. (And the Korean War one might be an error of fact by any standard. Although the North Korean government was a Chinese client, I believe the war was started by a North Korean attack over the 38th parallel. Not a Chinese invasion of the north, although the PLA did enter North Korea some months later.) After all, if you don't consider Taiwan a sovereign state, how can Chiang Kai Shek be "president"? And if your position is that Tibet is part of your sovereign territory, well, then, it isn't an invasion, is it?

I suppose I should be pleased that the book was allowed to be sold with redactions rather than simply banned. I don't even know that the marks were made by Chinese censors. They could have been done by the publisher, but if they are doing it in anticipation of Chinese censorship then it amounts to the same thing in the end. The irony of redacting a propaganda book aside, the marker lines were a reminder that not all information management is as colorful and captivating as the posters are.

*Oddly, so did Leni Riefenstahl.

Note: Updated to correct some nasty writing. Thanks, Martin! First the Vodafone thing and now this. You're like my personal proofreader. Or my third grade teacher. Take your pick. (See comments.)