 By the mid-1930s about 80,000 soldiers had received German-style training.After the KMT lost Nanjing and retreated to Wuhan, Hitler's government decided to withdraw its support of China in 1938 in favor of an alliance with Japan as its main anti-Communist partner in East Asia.After Germany and Japan signed the anti-communist Anti-Comintern Pact, the Soviet Union hoped to keep China fighting, in order to deter a Japanese invasion of Siberia and save itself from a two-front war.