Abstract:
This work is a discussion of the history of the construction and propagation over time (1949-
2002), by New Zealanders, of positive images of the People's Republic of China (PRC). This was
done primarily through the New Zealand China Friendship Society. The thesis also looks at
China-aligned communist parties, students who went on New Zealand University Students'
Association study tours in the 1970s, and key interlocutors such as Rewi Alley. These other
groups had cross-membership with the NZCFS but differing engagements with China.
The images propagated by the New Zealanders altered over time in response to changes in the
PRC, developments in New Zealand, and shifting characteristics amongst the people who were
engaged in the practice of producing images of the PRC. The thesis looks at how these observers
of the PRC, and the organisations which they are combined, are themselves created, and see
themselves, in relation to their process of viewing the PRC.
This idea of a shifting sense of China and the changing sense of self is explored using a range of
ideas. These include ideology, subjectivity, concepts of truth and practices of truth-telling. The
thesis is an attempt to provide a sympathetic reading of a wide range of material and trying to
understand what the PRC has meant at different times, in different circumstances and to
different people. Accounts of the PRC are examined contextually. This involves the re-reading of
a range of texts that have 'written' the PRC for those New Zealanders who, in different
circumstances, have themselves been sympathetic to projections of successes taking place in the
PRC.
