I was watching a documentary about Mongolian Nazis. They dressed as Nazis (SS uniform), expressed Nazi gestures (right arm salute), and displayed swastika flags. However, in the documentary, there was no mention whatsoever of any feelings, neutral or bad, towards Jews; their main concern was with Chinese immigration. (They may well have anti Semitic beliefs but did not display them). Can these Mongolian "Nazis" actually be described as Nazis, as opposed to fascists or any other political movement? In other words, how integral is anti Semitism and a hatred of Jews to the Nazi movement?
Well, if understood faithfully, Nazism is in its central tenants very much bound to its immediate historical context. For this it is important to understand that the self-understanding of Nazism differs from other ideologies. In fact, Nazism does not understand itself as an ideology but in the view of its historical proponents, is a "Weltanschauung". It's hard to explain this to non-German speakers but while Weltanschauung loosely translates to world view in the case of the Nazis that does not fully capture what the term is meant to convey.
You see, the Nazis rejected the label of ideology for their own ideas. Ideologies are based on a system of idea about the world. The Nazis didn't see what they adhere to as a mere system of ideas. For them, an essential part of Nazism is the act. Rather than think and ponder the world as they saw ideologies do, they saw Nationalsocialism as an act too. One had to act according to the tenants aimed not at understanding the world and its structures but at molding the world according to the image it should have. The act of uncompromising deeds, of fighting the enemy actively, of making your views on the world reality was understood to be an essential part of Nationalsocialism. The term "Weltanschauung" itself conveys an action – anschauen, to view.
What's further is that this went hand in hand with another very core tenant of Nationalsocialism: The national. Rejecting the internationalism, communists expounded and the Nazis ascribed to the Jews, at its very core, Nationalsocialism was the ideology of the national, the particular, and the German. It differs so heavily from communism, democracy, and even fascism because it rejected any sort of universalism and therefore internationality. Strictly understood by its historical adherents, there could be no Nationalsocialism outside of Germany. Even some fascists took the view that there could be a fascist party in Italy, Croatia, Albania etc. and that as long as they were fascists, there could be a sort skewed but still present equality between those. Nationalsocialism rejects that notion because it is a "völkisch" ideology, an ideology about the superiority of a race over others.
And that race is engaged in the struggle for superiority in the world. The very core ideas of Nazism, race and space, are summarize the idea that the motor of history (akin to Marxian class struggle e.g.) is the conflict between races for superiority and in that conflict, the position of superiority belongs to the German / Aryan race. This position however is threatened by the Jew because it is – in this twisted vision of reality – the only race without a nation and it controls from through conspiracy from behind the scenes. A race that acts like a parasite from within. In order to defeat the Jew, the German race needs to banish the Jew from its space and take what space it needs in order to win the struggle for historical racial superiority, the East.
All these ideas, when strictly interpreted, are only relevant within a certain historical German context. Most historical Nazis who took their system of beliefs seriously would laugh at the notion of Mongolian or even US-American Nazis, as white supremacists as they might be. Because Nazism, as understood by its historical adherents, is the German quest for Jew-free space.
Now this is the strict interpretation. However, as any set of ideas, it tends to develop a life of its own that its first adherents might not have intended and over time develops further. So, is it possible for Mongolians to be Nazis, to use your example? Tentatively I'd answer this with yes. Anti-Semitism is a core idea of Nazism and while there is such a thing as anti-Semitism in countries historically without Jews such as Japan, what makes the Nazis anti-Semitism so powerful in their world view are its structural features as an ideological idea. While these structural features are historically applied to Jews, it is these features that define it and not the focus on Jews so much.
Generally, from its structure anti-Semitism is an ideology of conspiracy. It imagines the world controlled by a race of people from behind the scenes and via controlling opposing political ideologies, parties and system in order to act out against another race of people and that it is this conflict that is the motor of history. This is what in the eyes of its ideologues makes the Jews so dangerous and why every last one of them needs to be destroyed (physically annihilated).
Now, it is possible that Mongolian Nazis have transferred this ideological structure – that in Europe and the West has historically been applied to Jews – to Chinese people but, honestly, I think that unlikely. I think these Mongolian Nazis are not Nazis in an ideological understanding but have taken over what they know to be symbols, aesthetics, and mannerism of racism in the West and embraced them as a way to demonstrate their racist ideas and political agenda. As far as I could tell, they do self-describe as Nazis and we can indeed chose to take them seriously in their claim. Adolf Hitler, Heinrich Himmler and other historical Nazis would not have agreed with that assessment though.
Sources:
Boaz Neumann: Nazi Weltanschauung - Space, Body, Language
Boaz Neumann, "Nazi Antisemitism and the 'Decline of Language'", in Murray Baumgarten, Peter Kenez and, Bruce Thompson, eds., Varieties of Antisemitism - History, Ideology, Discourse (Newark: University of Delaware press, 2009), 50-74.
Detlev Claussen: Grenzen der Aufklärung: Zur gesellschaftlichen Geschichte des modernen Antisemitismus.