淸日戰爭 前後 일제의 戰爭 捏造와 일본 언론의 煽動

Abstract

Japan won the Sino-Japanese War and the Russo-Japanese War in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century and became an imperialist nation. In this process, propaganda and agitation were used to a great extent in conducting those wars. First, by trumping up the war, Meiji government was able to elicit support from its own people, and mobilize human and material resources. The Japanese press also actively participated in Meiji governments propaganda activities by releasing false reports about the war to the public. Furthermore, the Japanese press used these reports to justify the war and create a warlike atmosphere. The Sino-Japanese War had become the epitome of these war propaganda and agitation. Of course, the Meiji government and Japanese press had shown keen interest in propaganda even before the Sino-Japanese War, but in these cases they had occasionally expressed different opinions on relevant political issues. On the contrary, during the Sino-Japanese War, the Meiji government implemented a strict press control policy and integrated the press into a sub-system of the government, degenerating it into a propaganda tool of the Meiji government. Today, deriving from the conservative wave in Japan, some Japanese history textbooks are ​​based on these propaganda and are exerting bad influence upon other Japanese history textbooks. This influence is a primary factor which hinders Japan from recognizing errors of the past and amplify historical disputes in East Asia.