Editing Kuomintang (section)

=== Fascist influences ===
{{See also|Dang guo}}
The [[Blue Shirts Society]], a [[Chinese nationalism#Ultranationalism|ultranationalist]] paramilitary organization within the KMT that modeled itself after [[Benito Mussolini|Mussolini]]'s [[blackshirts]], was [[Xenophobia|anti-foreign]] and [[Anti-communism|anti-communist]], and it stated that its agenda was to expel foreign (Japanese and Western) imperialists from China, crush Communism, and eliminate feudalism.<ref name=DaiLi>{{cite book|author=Frederic E. Wakeman|title=Spymaster: Dai Li and the Chinese Secret Service|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=jYYYQYK6FAYC&pg=PA75|access-date=28 June 2010|year=2003|publisher=University of California Press|isbn=978-0-520-23407-9|page=75|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170205143553/https://books.google.com/books?id=jYYYQYK6FAYC&pg=PA75|archive-date=5 February 2017|url-status=live}}</ref> In addition to being anticommunist, some KMT members, like Chiang Kai-shek's right-hand man [[Dai Li]] were anti-American, and wanted to expel American influence.{{Sfn|Fenby|2005|p=414}} Close [[Sino-German cooperation (1926–1941)|Sino-German ties]] also promoted cooperation between the Kuomintang and the [[Nazi Party]] (NSDAP).<ref>{{Cite thesis |last=Rodriguez |first=Robyn L. |title=Journey to the East: The German Military Mission in China, 1927-1938 |date=2011 |url=http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1319222757 |oclc=773097163}}</ref> The Kuomintang sought to build a one-party ideological state in China, called ''[[Dang Guo]]'', to solidify its rule and ideological supremacy.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://sunology.yatsen.gov.tw/detail/7f484043455fe4840e67316e9b493957/ |title=當俄革命時 |website=國父思想總論 |publisher=國立國父紀念館 |access-date=2025-03-01}}</ref>

The [[New Life Movement]] was a government-led civic movement in 1930s China initiated by Chiang Kai-shek to promote cultural reform and Neo-Confucian social morality and to ultimately unite China under a centralised ideology following the emergence of ideological challenges to the status quo. The Movement attempted to counter threats of Western and Japanese imperialism through a resurrection of traditional Chinese morality, which it held to be superior to modern Western values. As such the Movement was based upon [[Confucianism]], mixed with [[Christianity]], [[nationalism]] and [[authoritarianism]] that have some similarities to fascism.<ref name="schok">Schoppa, R. Keith. [https://books.google.com/books?id=M6_tAAAAMAAJ&q=New+Life+Movement The Revolution and Its Past] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230403221205/https://books.google.com/books?id=M6_tAAAAMAAJ&q=New+Life+Movement |date=3 April 2023 }} (New York: Pearson Prentic Hall, 2nd ed. 2006, pp. 208–209 .</ref> It rejected [[individualism]] and [[liberalism]], while also opposing [[socialism]] and [[communism]]. Some historians regard this movement as imitating [[Nazism]] and being a neo-[[Nationalism|nationalistic]] movement used to elevate Chiang's control of everyday lives. [[Frederic Wakeman]] suggested that the New Life Movement was "Confucian fascism".<ref>Wakeman, Frederic, Jr. (1997). "A Revisionist View of the Nanjing Decade: Confucian Fascism." ''The China Quarterly'' 150: 395–432.</ref>

According to [[Stanley G. Payne|Stanley Payne]], Chiang's KMT was "normally classified as a multi-class [[Right-wing populism|populist]] or '[[nation-building]]' party but not a fitting candidate for fascism (except by old-line Communists)." He also stated that, "Lloyd Eastman has called the Blue Shirts, whose members admired [[European fascism]] and were influenced by it, a Chinese fascist organization. This is probably an exaggeration. The Blue Shirts certainly exhibited some of the characteristics of fascism, as did many nationalist organizations around the world, but it is not clear that the group possessed the full qualities of an intrinsic fascist movement....The Blue Shirts probably had some affinity with and for fascism, a common feature of nationalisms in crisis during the 1930s, but it is doubtful that they represented any clear-cut Asian variant of fascism."<ref>{{Cite book |last=Payne |first=Stanley |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=NLiFIEdI1V4C&q=blue%20shirts%20chiang |title=A History of Fascism 1914–1945 |publisher=University of Wisconsin Press |year=2021 |isbn=978-0299148744 |page=337 |access-date=2 February 2021}}</ref> The [[China–Germany relations (1912–1949)|Sino-German relationship]] also rapidly deteriorated as Germany failed to pursue a détente between China and Japan, which led to the outbreak of the [[Second Sino-Japanese War]]. China later declared war on [[Axis powers|fascist countries]], including Germany, Italy, and Japan, as part of the [[Declarations of war during World War II]] and Chiang, the head of the KMT, became the most powerful "[[anti-fascist]]" leader in Asia.<ref>{{cite book |editor=Guido Samarani |title=Shaping the Future of Asia: Chiang Kai-shek, Nehru and China-India Relations During the Second World War Period |date=2005 |publisher=Centre for East and South-East Asian Studies, Lund University}}</ref>