Editing New Life Movement (section)

== Influences on the Movement ==
The ideological strictness of the New Life Movement had many similarities with [[Neo-Confucianism]], which had been the dominant [[moral philosophy]] of previous centuries. The New life Movement "four virtues" were taken from Confucian school of thought. Paul Linebarger had stated that the New Life Movement's "principles consist of a simple restatement of the cardinal Confucian personal virtues, interpreted to suit modern conditions."<ref>Paul M. A. Linebarger, ''[http://www.gutenberg.org/files/40350/40350-h/40350-h.htm Government in Republican China]'', (New York: McGraw Hill, 1938) p. 61.</ref>

The historian Lloyd Eastman saw Chiang's goal as unifying China under a singular ideology, a [[Fascism|fascist]] one at that, with the resulting New Life Movement being a popularized or a "sloganized Confucianism".{{sfnb|Eastman|1974|p = 67}} According to Keith Schoppa, the new set of beliefs was seen to be easy to execute, with four main virtues backed by 95 further sub-rules that regulated the everyday life of the regular Chinese&nbsp;citizen.<ref>R. Keith Schoppa, ''Revolution and Its Past: Identities and Change in Modern Chinese History'' 3rd Edition, (Boston: Prentice Hall, 2011), 208.</ref>

The Movement's call for women to return to the home as virtuous wives and good mothers was in part influenced by Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy's restraints on women's employment.''<ref name=":22">{{Cite book |last=Wang |first=Xian |title=Gendered Memories: An Imaginary Museum for Ding Ling and Chinese Female Revolutionary Martyrs |date=2025 |publisher=[[University of Michigan Press]] |isbn=978-0-472-05719-1 |series=China Understandings Today series |location=Ann Arbor}}</ref>''{{Rp|page=73}}

The Movement was also shaped by Chiang's [[Christianity]]. According to Elmer Clark, the new doctrine was "an ambitious moral and ethical enterprise which proposed nothing less than a Chinese renaissance, a complete reformation of the habits, customs and manners of one fourth of the human race, to bring them more in line with the accepted morals of Christian civilisation".<ref>Elmer T. Clark,&nbsp;''The Chiangs of China,&nbsp;''(New York: Abington-Cokesbury Press, 1943), 79.</ref>  Overlapping moral guidelines exist between Confucianism and Christianity. The 95 rules placed in the New Life movement often blur the lines between the influence of the two on the Movement, such as "do not gamble" or "be polite and courteous to women and children".

This Movement has also been accused of having a totalitarian element. Dirlik sees the movement as a "modern [[Counter-revolutionary|counterrevolution]]" opposed to an "anti-revolutionary [[conservatism]]" due to the fact that it instrumentalised traditional moral codes and societal constructs.<ref name=":3" /> Some historians regard this movement as imitating [[Nazism]] and regarded this movement as 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> Other historians, however, have provided more positive or mixed reviews of the New Life Movement, noting that it was not without some positive benefits to Chinese society at the time, and have argued that while a flawed, overidealistic and puritanical movement, it was not necessarily a fascist one at its core.<ref>{{cite book|first=Jonathan|last=Fenby|title=Chiang Kai Shek - China's Generalissimo and the Nation He Lost|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=s2NKutuUlA8C&q=new%20life%20rules|year=2008|publisher=OUP Oxford|page=14|isbn=9780786739844}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|first=Jay|last=Taylor|title=The Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek and the Struggle for Modern China|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=7Kz111Lie-0C&q=new%20life%20movement%20inculcate|year=2009|publisher=Harvard University Press|page=108|isbn=9780674033382}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|first=A. James|last=Gregor|title=A Place In The Sun: Marxism And Fascism In China's Long Revolution|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=qKybDwAAQBAJ&q=new%20life%20nothing|year=2019|publisher=Taylor & Francis|page=76|isbn=9780429983191}}</ref>