USC US-China Institute Webcast, 4/9/20

 


In sharing the highlights of her new book, Building the Post 1949 State in China and Taiwan, Julia Strauss presented a fascinating overview of key differences between the campaign and propaganda strategies utilized by the People’s Republic of China (PRC) in relation to Taiwan, or the the Republic of China (ROC). Due to China’s vast size, Stauss focused her study of the PRC on Sunan (Southern Jiangsu), a wealthy and developed area near Shanghai approximately equal in size and infrastructure to the ROC. 
One of the most important “preconditions for regime consolidation” was domestic security. Both the PRC/Sunan and the ROC/Taiwan utilized “campaigns of terror” against domestic enemies in order to consolidate the state. However, the campaigns differed in their presentation, as can be seen in the slides. In the PRC (pictures on the left of slides) trials were public and dramatic. Similarly propaganda was colorful and appealed to the emotion. The emphasis was on nationalism and loyalty to the country. The ROC, on the other hand, emphasized Martial Law. Trials were private while propaganda articles were black/white, factual, and terse.  
These differences are significant because the means by which policies were implemented had a long-lasting impact on both Republics. By the mid-1950s, the PRC was a successful, consolidated "revolutionary" authoritarian regime while the ROC was a consolidated "conservative" authoritarian regime.

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