in 1927 the civil war in the republic of china began when the kuomintang (kmt) became rivals with the chinese communist party (ccp) and both parties led by chiang kai-shek and mao zedong were fighting against each other. the chinese nationalists got support from the weimar german republic and nazi germany by buying german weapons from europe until the nazi’s started to support the japanese empire in 1937 when the second sino-japanese war began which is the start of world war 2 in asia .