China Becomes Fascist

Written By: - Date published: 12:52 pm, August 26th, 2019 - 42 comments
Categories: China, democracy under attack, International - Tags:

Those who see fascism emerging under Trump can observe the full modern version in action now in Hong Kong’s contest of protesters with the Chinese government.

In a really weird moment this weekend I found myself agreeing with US Senate leader Mitch McConnell, who in the Wall Street Journal said:

This crisis didn’t begin in Hong Kong and won’t end there. The turmoil is the result of Beijing’s systematic ratcheting up of its domestic oppression and its pursuit of hegemony abroad.”

If you are visiting China for any reason now, take only a burner phone. A mote of stored resistance will see you detained at the airport.

The head of Cathay Pacific just got fired for insufficient ideological enforcement of his staff.

Through it all Xi Jinping may well win the Hong Kong domestic propaganda battle with their full digital messaging control and corporate martial rule, but lose the war pushing western social and MSM opinion toward sympathy with Trump’s trade war against China. Bad, meet worse.

Communism with Chinese characteristics entails unrestrained digital fascism. Plus the PLA camped in a stadium next to Hong Kong ready to go full Tiananmen on their asses.

Hong Kong’s protesters have no face to lose, all to gain across global opinion, and nowhere to go. That’s hundreds of thousands in one place, every week for months, in the biggest anti-fascist uprising we have seen globally in many decades.

This is a critical issue for all supporters of democracy (even where it’s more limited than ours). If Hong Kong’s limited democracy is crunched or fully dissolved, we will see Chinese fascism roll in full force across millions more people, through one of Asia’s most important cities.

Resist.

42 comments on “China Becomes Fascist ”

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  1. Muttonbird 1
    26 August 2019 at 12:53 pm

    Becomes fascist? Where were you in 1989?

  2. McFlock 2
    26 August 2019 at 1:19 pm

    Funny how all of this (not forgetting Uyghur mass imprisonment) is ratcheting up after Xi got rid of his constitutional term limit, too. I keep beating that term limit drum, but it was the biggest necessary step to moving back to totalitarian personality cults and dynastic rule.

    • Sacha 2.1
      26 August 2019 at 1:26 pm

      What a coincidence that Chump has been making noises about dismantling the term limits on his own presidency..

      • McFlock 2.1.1
        26 August 2019 at 1:34 pm

        jesus christ, he probably thinks he can do it with an executive order, too.

        Chances he gets dragged kicking and screaming out of the Oval Office on Jan 20 some year soonish just increased…

      • alwyn 2.1.2
        26 August 2019 at 2:50 pm

        When did Trump talk about doing this Sacha?

        The times he has been questioned on the subject seem to have attracted pretty stong expressions of disapproval from the man. After all, when asked whether he would try to do it he said.

        "No," Trump responded. "Just won't happen."

        "I think the eight-year limit is a good thing, not a bad thing," he added."

        https://thehill.com/homenews/sunday-talk-shows/417309-trump-rejects-suggestion-he-would-do-away-with-presidential-term

      • Stuart Munro. 2.1.3
        26 August 2019 at 3:41 pm

        He'll be copying Putin, who did the same in Russia.

        • Dukeofurl 2.1.3.1
          26 August 2019 at 5:19 pm

          Did He ?

          Putin has only ever served consecutive terms as per their constitution, and the end of each period he left office. Then after his sucessors term ended was elected again

          "The president is elected directly through a popular vote to a six-year term. The law prohibits anyone from ever being elected to the presidency for a third consecutive term"

          see the difference.

          US Constitution is worded differently

          "No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice,

          Churchill got the Commons to removed the 5 yr government term limit , so in 1945 election was the first for 10 years. That was only temporary.

          • Stuart Munro. 2.1.3.1.1
            26 August 2019 at 5:36 pm

            Putin changed the term limits in 2008. One term was supposed to be it – no more Stalins was the object – didn't suit the espiocrat at all.

            • Dukeofurl 2.1.3.1.1.1
              26 August 2019 at 5:51 pm

              I explained how he didnt

              The 2008 changes were from 4 yr terms to 6 yrs not remove term limits.
              https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_amendments_to_the_Constitution_of_Russia

              The law says ' only serve two consecutive terms' not the the US wording which is a maximum of 2 terms. They dont have to be consecutive.

              Indeed Grover Cleveland served two non consecutive terms ( term limits didnt apply then)

              • Stuart Munro. …
                26 August 2019 at 5:56 pm

                So you've bought the spin.

                Some discussion here:
                https://www.economist.com/europe/2008/11/14/on-putins-terms

                • Dukeofurl …
                  26 August 2019 at 7:51 pm

                  Do you have a learning disability ?

                  The facts are Putin uses the existing laws which only restrict the number of consecutive terms , with a out of office period in between ( as PM)

                  Giving a Economist paywalled article doesnt prove that Putin has done anymore than exploit existing laws.

                  Your claim was of course that Putin has changed the term limits. Russia only had and still has a limit on consecutive terms.

                  The US has a limit on total terms

                  Consecutive …look it up

              • alwyn …
                26 August 2019 at 6:38 pm

                The two term limit in the USA has been described as the posthumous revenge of the Republican Party on Franklin Roosevelt. Rather funny of course that the first President affected was the Republican Dwight Eisenhower. To be fair there was no way he would have run again, even though he would almost certainly have won in 1960.

                • Stuart Munro. …
                  26 August 2019 at 6:41 pm

                  In Korea presidents get a single five year term. It helps avoid all the invidious behaviors of folk seeking re-election.

                  • alwyn …
                    26 August 2019 at 7:00 pm

                    Other large countries with a single term and where the President actually has the power are Mexico and the Philippines.

                    Israel is the same one term limit but I bet neither you nor anyone else reading this could tell us who the President is without using Google.

                    • Stuart Munro. …
                      26 August 2019 at 7:05 pm

                      It does have the virtue of encouraging active governance – there won't be another term to get around to it in.

                      And of course Koreans remember Park – the head of the KCIA had to kill him to get him out of office.

                      Probably the reigning virtue of democracy – the one that doesn’t get corrupted to the extent the others do, is that it enables transitions without violence. Monarchy creates successor or pretender coups.

      • fustercluck 2.1.4
        27 August 2019 at 7:59 am

        Hilarious. Trump makes jokes specifically about leftists' paranoia and they lose their minds taking him literally (proving leftists have no sense of humour).

        China is indeed a modern iteration of fascism where a disarmed citizenry faces the might of the state with little to defend themselves.

        Accusations that Trump is heading towards fascism are laughable in the face of the obvious: Fascist states disarm their people while free nations respect their right to arm and defend themselves. Trump is fighting to maintain the strength of the Second Amendment, a constitutional provision designed specifically to prevent the rise of totalitarianism/fascism.

        NZ is in the midst of a disarmament exercise. Makes you wonder which way we are headed, eh?

  3. Stuart Munro. 3
    26 August 2019 at 1:42 pm

    I'd say totalitarian rather than fascist – there are humanist policies enacted from time to time by the ruling clique, but massive states need the leavening influence of democracy or they slide into despotic uses of power.

    • alwyn 3.1
      26 August 2019 at 2:42 pm

      I think Lord Acton summed the whole matter up in the 19th century.

      "Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely".

      And pray tell Stuart. What are these humanist policies that Xi Jinping has enacted?

      • Stuart Munro. 3.1.1
        26 August 2019 at 3:31 pm

        I'm not certain – I don't follow him you understand. But there is a prosocial element to Chinese statism that was visible when I was there, though it may not extend to Uighers. That was under Hu Jintao however, a better fellow I thought.

        • alwyn 3.1.1.1
          26 August 2019 at 6:49 pm

          Yes, that is the difference. Of course it is Xi, and not his predecessors after Deng set the rules who has no term limit. That is the "absolute power", isn't it?

          I rather liked the way that Deng's only official position in his later years was apparently President of the Chinese Contract Bridge Federation. It was called something like that anyway. He was, I am told, quite a good player.

  4. Booker 4
    26 August 2019 at 3:02 pm

    There seems to be a real lack of thoughtful analysis on this in Western media. All it comes down to in most coverage (including this post) is China = bad, West = good.

    Take this for example:

    “Hong Kong’s contest of protesters with the Chinese government”. They’re not in protest with these Chinese government, it’s their own semi-autonomous officials who introduced the legislation. A bit more nuance would go a long way to conveying the actual reality of the situation.

    Or the quote of:

    “This crisis didn’t begin in Hong Kong and won’t end there.”

    No it didn’t, it started with the British Empire taking their land, running the country for a century or so then handing it back without a real plan of how the transition would work. And before anyone mentions the 50 yr transition period – how would that work, in reality? If you’re going from a society where people elect officials to one where they don’t, how is that transition really going to work – just do it slowly over 50 yrs and no one will notice? The whole fiasco was a debacle from the start, and the UK carry a substantial portion of the blame. This was about as well planned as Brexit.

  5. The Chairman 5
    26 August 2019 at 3:18 pm

    A US right-winger's view on Hong Kong.

    Warning, footage may disturb some viewers.

    https://youtu.be/Z3OvTKqn6hc

  6. DS 6
    26 August 2019 at 5:36 pm

    China is not fascist. Fascism involves – among other things – a mobilisation of the populace on a broad scale, whereas the Chinese regime does not currently do this. Nor does Beijing obsess about dreams of Empire and Conquest, a la Mussolini or Adolf.

    It's just a nasty authoritarian state – specifically a strange red-tinted continuation of the past two thousand years of Chinese dynastic politics. The current bunch will one day fall, but I'd bet it won't be in our lifetimes.

  7. mauī 7
    26 August 2019 at 7:00 pm

    Once again this is the BS western narrative about "democracy", which usually indicates the opposite – regime change. Too many previous examples to list, Venezuela, Syria, Iraq, North Korea, etc.

    Also, the apparent cause of these protests, an extradition treaty to the parent country doesn't warrant this kind of unrest. So clearly the MSM are spinning again..

    • Psycho Milt 7.1
      27 August 2019 at 5:49 am

      Once again this is the BS western narrative about "democracy",

      Yeah, what's democracy ever done for us, eh?

      Also, the apparent cause of these protests, an extradition treaty to the parent country doesn't warrant this kind of unrest.

      I think the people living there are better capable than you of judging whether any particular encroachment on their civil liberties by a totalitarian dictatorship warrants protest or not. This particular law would mean any civil rights activist in Hong Kong could be accused of a crime in China and handed over to the CCP, so it's hardly surprising that the locals weren't impressed.

      • Mark 7.1.1
        27 August 2019 at 8:49 am

        "This particular law would mean any civil rights activist in Hong Kong could be accused of a crime in China and handed over to the CCP, so it's hardly surprising that the locals weren't impressed."

        Absolute balderdash – have you even read the draft of that proposed law?

      • mauī 7.1.2
        27 August 2019 at 10:05 am

        The history of Hong Kong isn't about democracy however, they were under British rule for 150 years and continue to have a ruling elite. So hardly a beacon of the civil rights movement.

        Again is there any evidence of a rising Chinese influence on HK? Or has this all been over egged somewhat by the media.

        New Zealand would have troops on the ground in the Cook Islands by now if these protests were happening there. China does not.

  8. Mark 8
    27 August 2019 at 3:16 am

    Fascist? No…..China and Hong Kong are being soft cocks

    Thugs are throwing petrol bombs, bricks, beating up people who disagree with them – they have charged in and trashed the legislative council (i.e their parliament), and brought the airport to a standstill for 2 whole fucking days.

    These riots have been going on for 12 weeks and not a single death is testament to the restraint of the cops to the point of indulging these idiots.

    I daresay if you don a gasmask, wave an iron bar around and charge at the white house or capitol hill or where ever there would be a very good chance that you will lose your life

    And I challenge you Advantage to gather a bunch of your mates, for whatever political cause, and go down to Auckland airport and stand in the way of people checking in….try that and see what happens to you. Or try that at any American airport

    Sorry but anyone carrying a petrol bomb around, anywhere in the world should be shot on site – it would very likely happen in NZ

    The HK government have been pathetic the way they have indulged these creatures – and it is not going to stop until the cops get serious and crack some heads

    Fuck this anti-china narrative and double standards is just getting fucking ridiculous.

    [Inciting violence is never ok irrespective of the political cause so please don’t go there on this site – Incognito]

  9. Mark 9
    27 August 2019 at 8:43 am

    OK apologies for that…..instead I will say I hope for a stronger police action or for intervention by the Peoples Liberation army – in order to restore order and protect ordinary people

    PsychoMilt—if you saw a masked dude walking down the street carrying a petrol bomb, what would you expect the police to do in order to protect public safety?

  10. esoteric pineapples 10
    27 August 2019 at 9:03 am

    This video is an excellent counter point of view

    Some interesting facts that people may not know:

    * A Hong Kong man who murdered his pregnant girlfriend in Taiwan and was going to stay free unless he was extradited to China started the protests – not6 quite the most noble of reasons for protests to start

    * A mob of protesters mashed into the Hong Kong Parliament Building (about a month ago) and putt up a British flag. How could these be seen as anything else but provocative towards China.