[boogerz]

Originally Posted by rubecube

This is one of the dumbest things I've ever read on here.

How is it dumb? There are enough similarities between Xi's China to Wehrmacht-era Germany to make it a credible modern comparable. Some of the similarities to Wehrmacht-era Germany:

- Economic growth driven by mass industrial privatization/capitalism
- Use of that economic growth to bring mass employment, take a large portion of the population out of poverty, and build political support (e.g. China's urbanization and growing middle class)
- Emphasis on building military power (e.g. large military, man-made islands in the Pacific, frequent border skirmishes/agitation with neighboring nations, rapidly increasing naval capacity)
- Use of mass propaganda (e.g. Chinese state controlled media) to suppress thought and root out dissent (e.g. the Hong Kong situation, social credit system, and detainment of authors/scientists/politicians/activists that speak out against the government)
- Promotion of ethnic homogeneity and Han racial superiority (e.g. using African countries for even cheaper labour and resources, Uighur “re-education camps, and a general culture of xenophobia against non-Chinese people of all ethnicities)

Germany didn't invade Poland until 1939, about 10 years after Hitler started to solidify his following before seizing power in the early 30s. At the start of WWII, Germany was said to be at a similar point as China is now, where the rapid economic growth was starting to slow (thereby putting a risk to the tower of cards that Hitler built).

Xi took power in 2013 and in 2019 solidified the position as his for the foreseeable future. If we're already seeing strong parallels to pre-WWII Germany seven years in, what will the decade look like? Is the invasion of Taiwan in a few years the straw that breaks the camel’s back?

When you look at mid-30s western media about concentration camps (e.g. actual newspaper articles from US and UK media outlets at the time), it's actually quite similar to modern reporting on the current Uighur situation.

No one is saying that this ends in an all-out war like WWII did, but to an outsider looking in, comparing China to pre-WWII Germany is not dumb in at all.