British Propaganda and Wars of Empire

Influencing Friend and Foe 1900–2010

Christopher Tuck, Greg Kennedy

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN:
  9781409451730
• eBook ISBN:
  9781317171546
• Topic: Storia
• Subtopic: Storia del XX secolo

'Influence' is a slippery concept, yet one of tremendous relevance for those wishing to understand global politics. From debates on the changing sources of power in the international system, through to analyses of its value as an alternative to the active use of force as a policy instrument, influence has become a recurrent theme in discussions of international relations and foreign policy. In order to provide a better understanding of the multifaceted and shifting nature of influence, this volume looks at how the British government employed various forms of pressure and persuasion to achieve its goals across the twentieth century. By focusing on Britain - a global actor with great power objectives but declining physical means - the collection provides a wide range of case studies to assess how influence was brought to bear on a wide array of non-western cultures and societies. It furthermore allows for an assessment of just how effective - or ineffective - British efforts were at influencing non-Western targets over a hundred years of operations. By shedding important light on the efficacy of British efforts to sustain and advance its interests in the twentieth century, the volume will be of interest not only to historians, but to anyone interested in contemporary problems surrounding the operation of influence as a foreign policy tool.

Chapter 1

British Propaganda and the Protection of Empire in the Far East, 1933–42

Greg Kenned

The use of propaganda, both black and white varieties, to deter and influence possible foes, as well as unite and mobilise friendly forces, was a constant feature in the British post-First World War system of Imperial Defence.¹ The war had revealed the way in which fiscal policy, racial characteristics, religious affiliation, military actions, trade policy or political ideology, could be used in both circumstances. The intention, therefore, of propaganda was to be found in the motivation of its producer.² In the case of the British pre-1941 attempts to influence foreign strategic cultures, particularly those utilising values and norms alien to traditional European considerations regarding the proper conduct of international relations, an accurate ‘reading’ of those cultures was critical if British institutions tasked with the conduct of any propaganda campaign were to construct, direct, target and transmit their products successfully.³ Most importantly, however, the First World War had educated Britain’s strategic policy-makers to the need to enlarge, enable and construct modern, effective policy-making and directing machinery able to combine intelligence, propaganda and economic action on a global scale.⁴ Through an analysis of the influence of such factors as race, orientalism, cultural prejudice, the influence of group-think on mental map creation, resource shortages, institutional rivalry and toxic leadership, this chapter will evaluate whether or not (a) there was what could be considered a propaganda campaign aimed at deterring Japan in the pre-war years, and (b) whether it was an important and effective part of Britain’s deterrence strategy.

The use of propaganda to protect British Far Eastern strategic interests must be looked at through three key prisms: temporal; regional; and imperial.⁵ With regard to the temporal issue, formal British efforts to wage an effective propaganda campaign against Japanese threats to the British strategic interests in the Far East, and in particular China, were put into play very late in the day. Prior to 1939 there was no institutional or formal system for utilising propaganda to achieve strategic effect in the Far East.⁶ Only after the war in Europe broke out, and the re-invention of organisations and capabilities which had either lain dormant or been reduced severely in the aftermath of the First World War became a reality, did thoughts of turning such tools to strategic problems in the Far East find traction amongst the strategic foreign and defence policy-makers in Whitehall.⁷ However, limited resources meant that the Far Eastern theatre, a theoretical theatre until the summer of 1941, received little attention in terms of support to the establishment of a formal propaganda campaign comparable to the activities in the European theatre. As well, inter-departmental tensions and bureaucratic/political infighting between various British departments being reconfigured to meet wartime intelligence, foreign policy, propaganda and information needs retarded the effective creation and deployment of the necessary organisational apparatus to the Far East.⁸ Regionally, the issue of how to target the Japanese, with what arguments, and in what areas (in China, in Japan, in other Far Eastern nations that might be pro-British), confused the resource allocation and targeting questions facing the small administrative and co-ordination organisations available in the theatre. Lastly, the connection between regional propaganda had at all times to be linked to and respectful to the imperative of the strategic need the British had for the position and perceptions of the United States on Far Eastern matters. As the provider of British security in the Far East from the summer of 1939 onwards, the United States strategic perspective dictated much of how British propaganda could work. British propaganda could not attempt to manipulate Japanese actions through any messages, gestures or topics that at the same time threatened the belief in America that Britain was a solid, reliable and dependable Far Eastern ally. Therefore, propaganda aimed at concessions, accommodation or co-operation between Britain and Japan was an unthinkable option.⁹ Ultimately, the key question this chapter will address is to what degree was British propaganda aimed at Japan actually for American consumption first and foremost, in the on-going British attempts to educate and consolidate American strategic support for the protection of British interests in the Far East?¹⁰

No formal, co-ordinated British propaganda campaign, sponsored by and utilising all the capabilities available to the intelligence services, the Foreign Office (FO), the separate military services, the Treasury or the Colonial Office existed in the Far Eastern part of the British Empire prior to the Japanese invasion of China in the summer of 1937.¹¹ As the war in China progressed, British business interests became more and more concerned with the protection of their holdings and markets in China. The London-based China Liaison Committee, made up of Far Eastern businesses, bankers and traders, petitioned the FO in March 1938 for permission to launch an economic propaganda campaign against the Japanese business policies in China.¹² Inexorably, Japanese economic, currency and trading policies were displacing and replacing British control of those facets of vast parts of the Chinese market place. The FO’s Permanent Under-Secretary, Sir Alexander Cadogan, agreed to meet with the Committee in early April. He suggested that the FO could offer to discuss getting The Times and the Daily Telegraph to do more on the topic of the Japanese threat to British economic and financial interest in China. As for using the BBC to any significant degree, Cadogan was reluctant to allow that particular medium to be used for such purposes at that point.¹³ After conversations with the Committee and considerations as to how the FO could best help such an initiative, the FO’s blessing and support to the project was given. By 1 June a moderate publicity campaign in some of the ‘more serious’ newspapers (The Times and the Daily Telegraph) had been approved. The material produced for the campaign would be seen by Japanese observers in London, as well as filtered through the European offices to the peripheral newspaper outlets in the Far East which simply repeated or re-transmitted material produced by the London papers into their own local media products.

The Chinese Liaison Committee were given direct access and helped in drafting articles for these papers from members of the FO’s Far Eastern Department. As well, persons such as Edward M. Gull, Secretary of the China Association and Sir John Brenan, a senior Far Eastern Department clerk and respected Asiatic scholar, worked jointly on the construction of an article on Japanese activity in China and its effects on British economic and fiscal interests. Once the article was ready for publication, the FO News Department would begin the process of trying to persuade one of the serious papers to publish the piece.¹⁴ However, despite the desire of the Committee to expose Japanese actions to the British public, British businesses in China were reluctant to get involved in support for such propaganda efforts. Gull informed Brenan that large British firms on the China Association board, such as Jardine Matheson, would not support the propaganda campaign for fear of retaliation by the Japanese against Jardine holdings in occupied China and Japan.¹⁵

Apart from this initial desultory, hesitant and unofficial attempt at creating a specific propaganda campaign, aimed at protecting British interests threatened by Japan, little other activity occurred in that vein. The occasional ‘spontaneous’ commentary was made by British politicians and policy-makers. Winston Churchill’s warnings to Japan to consider the actions it was taking in China appeared in the Daily Telegraph and Morning Post in late May, coinciding with the embryonic Chinese Liaison Committee’s efforts. The future Prime Minister extolled the value of the Soviet Union for efforts aimed at saving China, as well as pointing out the foolishness Japan had demonstrated in starting a naval arms race with America and Great Britain. However, the most important outcome of the Japanese actions in China was their inadvertent elevation of Chiang Kai Shek to the status of national hero and the subsequent unleashing of the forces of nationalism in China in a way that the Chinese could not have done themselves. Churchill cautioned Japan that China would be a dish that Japan could not swallow any time soon and that the adventure on mainland Asia would be a long and arduous process, ultimately ending in failure.¹⁶ In February of 1938, Sir Robert Vansittart, a former Permanent Under-Secretary of State (PUS) at the Foreign Office, who was relegated to a secondary role of Special Adviser and replaced by Sir Alexander Cadogan as PUS by Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, began work with the Committee on the Co-ordination of British Publicity Abroad.¹⁷ The aim of this committee was to organise and co-ordinate trade publicity overseas, particularly as a propaganda tool to offset any idea of British industrial weakness or inability to compete economically. However, such limited efforts were not enough to create a dedicated propaganda influence. In fact, no effective or focused response to the Japanese attempts to discredit and undermine the British presence and legitimacy in the Far East was undertaken until late 1940. That imbalance of propaganda activity did not go unnoticed by other powers in the region.

American observers of the British strategic position in China were aware of, and commented on, the pressure that the British were under from a focused, organised and co-ordinated Japanese propaganda campaign. In April 1939, the American Military Attaché, Colonel Joseph W. Stilwell, reported to Washington that there was no doubt that as far as the Japanese in China were concerned, the British were ‘public enemy no. 1 and all the British help to China, such as loans and rumours of loans, heightens that feeling’.¹⁸ By the summer of that year, as Britain watched Europe for signs of war, Japanese propaganda activity reached a new level of intensity:

A well organized campaign against the British is now in full swing. Inspired meetings and parades are held in all important cities in Japanese occupied territory, and some even in Manchukuo and Japan. The objectives probably are to furnish a convenient whipping boy for the home front in Japan and to focus anti-foreignism among the Chinese on Japan’s most potent economic rival. The Japanese evidently thought that since Britain had many times been the target of Chinese anti-foreign manifestations therefore such feelings could again easily be aroused. Then to the British appeasement policy in Europe and her comparatively mild reactions to earlier affronts were interpreted as distinct signs of weakness. What results are being achieved in Japan are not known here. But the Chinese in general are, so far, most apathetic to the Japanese urgings.¹⁹

As for British attempts to counter the Japanese efforts to discredit their rightful position in China, Stilwell noted that there was no formal, organised or co-ordinated British propaganda work going on anywhere. In comparison to the pre-war situation, British citizens in China were cowed and defeatist in their outlook regarding the future. He believed that: ‘They appear resigned to more buffeting, feeling that their government has already written them off. Many believe (and maybe rightly so) that their local diplomatic and military representatives as well as the home government have badly bungled their jobs.’²⁰ In terms of any concerted British effort to mobilise local Chinese or Japanese moderate opinion in defence of the British position, he was correct.

Prior to the invasion of China, British strategic assessments of the level of Japanese threat to British interests in the region were divided.²¹ That division of opinion prevented pro-active and preemptive actions, such as the mobilisation of a modern, state sponsored propaganda campaign, from being implemented. In September 1939, Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, R.A.B. Butler and the soon to be Minister of Economic Warfare and head of the Special Operations Executive (SOE) Hugh Dalton discussed what should be done about the situation in the Far East now that a war in Europe was now a reality. Both agreed that in order to limit its strategic liabilities, Britain’s Chinese concessions should be negotiated away. Dalton thought that everything on the mainland north of Hong Kong and possibly even north of Singapore could be let go. Wh...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List Of Contributors
• Preface
• Introduction
• 1 British Propaganda and the Protection of Empire in the Far East, 1933–42
• 2 Losing the Game: Propaganda and Influence in the British Raj, 1917–47
• 3 Propaganda and Counter-Propaganda on the Frontier, 1937–43
• 4 Palestine 1945–48: Policy, Propaganda and the Limits of Influence
• 5 Influence in British Colonial Africa
• 6 ‘Two Cheers for Democracy’: Empire, Cold War and British Propaganda in Egypt, 1945–55
• 7 British Propaganda and Information Operations against Indonesia, 1963–66
• 8 The British Brand of Anti-Imperialism: Information Policy and Propaganda in South Arabia at the End of Empire
• 9 Rebuilding a Relationship: British Cultural Diplomacy towards China, 1967–80
• 10 Influencing Political Islam: Moderation, Resilience and De-Radicalisation in UK Domestic Counter-Terrorism Policies, 2005–11
• Select Bibliography
• Index