ABSTRACT
Introduction The telecommunications industry – including telegraph, telephone, and radio broadcasting – formed the core of what served as the imperial nervous system of the Japanese empire and its occupied areas. These information and censorship agencies performed the most crucial roles in controlling the hearts and minds of both Japanese and local populations in Japanese-controlled territories up until the end of World War Two. In Japan, Taiwan, and Korea, telegraph and telephone enterprises were run by the Ministry of Communications and related colonial government offi ces. Radio broadcasting was managed separately by the Hōsō kyōkai (Nippon Broadcasting Corporation, known as NHK). Only in Manchukuo, Japan’s puppet state in north China, were telegraph, telephone, and radio run by one single vast company, the Manchurian Telegraph and Telephone Company (hereafter the MTTC). There was thus a signifi cant difference between the MTTC, which was a vast and powerful organization, and other telecommunications agencies within the Japanese empire.
