Abstract:
The national crisis in the 1930s coerced various groups of Chinese society into the war of resistance against Japan aggression including children who became the focus of various political forces. In 1935, Huang Yide, He Gongchao, and others founded a current affairs newspaper
Children’s Daily specifically for children in Shanghai. It received strong support from educators such as Tao Xingzhi. The newspaper adopted dual enlightenment strategy of “national salvation” and “liberation of workers and peasants”. It inherited the narrative tradition since the late Qing Dynasty of linking children with the fate of the country and demonstrated a critical stance that differed from the official discourse of the Nationalist government. The newspaper also put emphasis on children’s agency as cognitive and practical subjects, creating a public space for children by interactions of editors and readers. In this space, children were not only passive recipients of information but also grew into active participants and producers of political discourse.
Children’s Daily was an important practice of leftists attempting to combine enlightenment with salvation through everyday media in the Nationalist-controlled areas during the war of resistance against Japan aggression.