The New Life Movement was founded at a time when China, already weakened by Western imperialism, faced the threats of rising Japanese militarism, domestic factionalism and communism. The launch of the New Life Movement was set in the context the Chiangs' growing concern with corruption, and moral decadence that they blamed on foreign influences. Historian Colin Mackerras writes that “Corruption was an abiding feature of Chiang Kai-shek’s rule" and that nepotism and bribery were rife among the bureaucracy.