Imperial Press Policy in Northeast China: The Shengjing Shibao and Japan's Foreign Ministry, 1907-31

From the late Meiji era, the development of a China-based press network functional to the national interest became an integral part of Japan’s imperial agenda. After the defeat of Russia in the 1904-05 war, the Northeast, compared to other regions, offered to Japanese initiative more favorable conditions to achieve a dominant position in the media landscape. One of the most successful enterprises was the government-sponsored Shengjing Shibao, which became the largest newspaper in Fengtian (Shenyang). As a tool of foreign policy, however, press management suffered from the lack of unified decision-making among different agencies. This policy area is therefore representative of the polycentric character of strategic planning in imperial Japan.

Andrea Revelant is Associate Professor in the Department of Asian and North African Studies at Ca’ Foscari University of Venice. His research interests focus on policy making, popular representation and mass communication in imperial Japan. He is currently working on the political discourse on China in the Japanese press of the interwar years. He is the author of Sviluppo economico e disuguaglianza (Economic Development and Inequality, 2016), Il Giappone moderno (Modern Japan, 2018) and Il Giappone contemporaneo (Contemporary Japan, 2024). He has published in several journals, including Modern Asian Studies, European Journal of East Asian Studies and Asiatische Studien. His work has also appeared in edited volumes, such as Japan and the Great War (Palgrave Macmillan, 2015), Chiang Kai-Shek and His Time, and The Historian’s Gaze (both Ca’ Foscari University Press, 2017, 2023).