ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the expectations of individual sacrifice for the nation fostered by the New Life Movement launched by the Nationalist Party (Guomindang) in 1934. It stresses how the movement psidelaced the burden of self-sacrifice on poor and disempowered citizens while equating Nationalist Party leadership with the nation’s future. Nationalist leaders presented New Life Movement values as more truly indigenous than those championed by Communists while at the same time validating these values with reference to movements in other national contexts then curtailing individual rights and vesting supreme power in the party-state.
