Camera as a Weapon: The Battle of Ideology in Pictorials Between the U.S. and China in Cold War

At the intersection of visual studies and media studies, this paper examines the diverse photographic representations of the People’s Republic of China in the late 1950s in photobooks and magazines published in China and the United States. Aided by photography’s “truth claim” and editorial strategies of pictorials, the portrayals of China from opposite sides of the Cold War appear to be equally credible and compelling, but also significantly different. To investigate this phenomenon, this study focuses on Henri Cartier-Bresson’s photo essay on China’s Great Leap Forward movement published in Life Magazine in 1958 and an iconic photobook made in the same year by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to showcase the country’s most recent and crucial achievements for foreign readers. The paper explores how photographic narratives became critical instruments in the global battlefield of ideology and how visual reportage contributes to the manipulation of information in print media.

I argue that photography was an indispensable medium for China in the late 1950s during the Sino-Soviet split to elevate the nation’s image on the diplomatic stage, evidenced by the government’s consistent investment in producing high-quality photobooks as diplomatic gifts and their welcoming attitude towards foreign photojournalists such as Bresson. In addition to ideological differences between China and the United States, my study highlights several decisive yet often neglected factors that justified and implemented the practice of misinformation and disinformation on both sides, such as socioeconomic and intellectual resources, nationalism, and imperialism, to reflect on the multilayered causes of propaganda.