Northern Expedition Lai Manwai's film documenting the
Northern Expedition and
Chiang Kai-shek's consolidation of power, produced by Lai's production company
Minxin, was approved by the
Kuomintang (KMT) branch in Shanghai as the only long-format film for party propaganda. This made it one of the first party films in China. It sought (mostly unsuccessfully) to attract cultural workers to create new propaganda works and more successfully established a censorship apparatus directed against unwelcome cultural products, especially left-wing artists and their works. By the 1930s and 1940s, both the Chinese Nationalist government and the Communist Party used documentary films as a form of propaganda. During the
Second Sino-Japanese War, the Nationalists had mobile projectionists travel in rural China to play anti-Japanese propaganda films. More was produced during the
Chinese Civil War. File:Eight Route Army in Shanxi.jpg|
Eighth Route Army in
Shanxi. File:Kwang-jeou Hu-man courageous battle poster.jpg|
Kwang-jeou Hu-man courageous battle poster. File:Navy Army Air Force fight the enemy poster.jpg|
Navy Army Air Force fight the
enemy poster File:Hanjian poster in Nanking.jpg|Propaganda poster in
Nanking depicting the fate of
traitors File:Chinese anti-Japanese poster published after the revenge by Koreans.jpg|Anti-Japanese propaganda poster published after revenge by Koreans in the
Wanpaoshan Incident Political In mainland China The Kuomintang used both
anti-communist and
anti-capitalist propaganda. During the
Chinese Civil War, propaganda was extensively used against the
Chinese Communist Party (CCP), both to discredit communist ideologies as well as to counter propaganda from the CCP to depict the Kuomintang leadership as capitalist.
In Taiwan facing
Mainland China proclaiming "
Three Principles of the People unite China" One of the main tools for disseminating propaganda in
Taiwan has been the
Government Information Office and the various media properties controlled by the
Kuomintang and the government. Besides controlling
commercial television and
radio stations, a police radio station often broadcast "educational" plays with propagandistic value and a film bureau. After the Kuomintang fled to Taiwan, propaganda through public education in Taiwan was an important tool in creating a Chinese national identity among Taiwanese and preparing the people for "a counter-offensive" against the PRC. Although the government is now democratic, the legacy of authoritarian rule has created a confusion of identity in Taiwan, both with many adults having grown up thinking that the ROC would launch a "counter-offensive" against the PRC and with Mandarin becoming the most common language. Previously, the people had been educated in the evils of the Communists and the good of the Nationalists, with many Taiwanese remembering lore taught in elementary school on the wisdom of
Chiang Kai-shek. The Kuomintang also published numerous publications after its retreat to Taiwan, including the
Free China Journal. Its popularity soared, as the editors and writers analyzed political situations at the time and sometimes even advised or criticized the government in earnest. Occasionally, the ROC has attempted to
spread propaganda into PRC-controlled areas, usually in the form of leaflet drops over coastal provinces that call for the locals to rebel against CCP rule and are accompanied by the promise that the ROC will one day liberate the mainland. That proved to be ineffective and after several years was largely discontinued. The Government Information Office was replaced after democratization with the
National Communications Commission, an agency styled after the
Federal Communications Commission in the United States. Most of today's films in Taiwan are Hollywood movies, and all theaters are commercially-run for-profit enterprises. Some activities of the Taiwanese government have been described as propaganda. Much of it has been directed against
Mainland China's
People's Republic of China. == Propaganda campaigns abroad ==