Traditionalism and Wartime Education: The New Life Movement, 1934–45

Inaugurated by Chiang Kai-shek in 1934, the New Life Movement began as a civic education program meant to inculcate the populace with a modern Chinese identity mixing traditional Confucian ethics, Christian principles, and military discipline. The movement was a response to the appeal of the Communist Party, as well as an effort to unify the people in preparation for an impending crisis with Japan. However, as war broke out in 1937, this ideological program was soon turned into an effective tool for wartime mass mobilization.

Current studies on the New Life Movement largely focus on its political functions, the ideologies of Chiang, or the fascist influence from German counselors. However, this paper seeks to reinterpret the campaign from the perspective of wartime mass education, which has long been underestimated due to historians’ attention to the question of Chinese fascism. It argues that wartime education centered on the movement invented a new “nationalism” through transnational exchanges on educational and political ideas. Taking classic Confucian orthodoxy as a base, the reformed movement absorbed elements from American liberalism and Christianity, as well as German fascism and Japanese militarism.

By analyzing official documents from the Ministry of Education and the Promotion Association, as well as the Chinese Recorder, an American missionary journal from 1928 to 1945, this paper investigates the different elements of traditionalism and various foreign ideologies in this propaganda regime, in order to show how a new “nationalism” was generated through the New Life Movement before and during World War II. Moreover, it looks into the debates of scholars at that time to better understand the actual practices of the movement in people's education and daily life.