Japanese Propaganda Methods in Indonesia during the Military Occupation： Focusing on Kitahara Takeo’s Indoneshiajin no Seikaku

Japanese South-commissioned writers who left for Southeast Asia during World War 2 as members of the military's Propaganda Unit usually presented Indonesian people in a positive light. However, this was not the case with Kitahara Takeo, one such writer. This article examines the function of the negative portrayal of Indonesians by Kitahara, as seen in his essay Indoneshia no Seikaku(1943.8), and argues that this form of representation was a propaganda technique employed by the author for the purpose of furthering the project of a “Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere”. In advancing this cause, Kitahara emphasized that “tough measures rather than mere slogans” were needed. In his view, the move toward a co-prosperity sphere had to be embodied in concrete policy, and it was necessary to recognize the actual problems in the Indonesian colony in order to devise the appropriate policies. His negative representation of Indonesian people can be read as a way of expressing “the real problem in the colony” that had to be addressed if the right policy was to be arrived at. He believed that this, eventually, would lead back to the idea of establishing a “Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere”. The purpose of this paper is not to categorize Kitahara’s work according to a simple “anti-war/pro-war” distinction, but rather to observe the diversity of propaganda techniques employed by South-commissioned writers.