From “Resist Manchus” to “Anti-Japanese”

Nationalist thought existed in ancient China, and the traditional nationalist thought in China, including the late Qing Dynasty, carried strong “racism” color, which was used by the ruling class to distinguish between “foreign and domestic” and justify orthodoxy. During the Anti-Japanese War, due to the unprecedentedly serious national crisis, the nationalist thought of nationalism continued to awaken. Both the Kuomintang and the Communist Party advocated national unity and encouraged the army and the people in their own different ways. So far, the historical context of clarifying nationalist thought has obviously shifted from the contradiction between “Han people and barbarians” to the contradiction between the Chinese nation and foreign invaders. Therefore, it is not difficult for us to glimpse a modern context from the evolution of modern nationalist thought during the two Sino-Japanese War.