The West and China: Threat of Fascism and The New Cold War

Inequality and widespread poverty will always be a solid basis for fascism. This is the reason why the likes of Donald Trump are influential in global politics today. 

For many years, globalists, capitalists and western politicians looked the other way, while the world financialized, jobs off-shored and opportunity was limited for low-skilled workers. Their entire way of life, industry and personality was threatened. Yet, these working people paid taxes and were ignored by establishment politicians. This is the wave that the likes of Donald Trump and Boris Johnson rode to power. Same thing is happening in Italy where Giorgia Meloni, a far right politician recently became Prime Minister. 


Meanwhile, in China, Xi Jinping has just secured an unprecedented third term as General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party. His leadership is based on an ideology of party control of China. This means weaning China off the freedoms and uncontrolled individual freedoms that Chinese billionaires have had over the years. China is now taking up equity in major businesses. That is complete party control, even if China is still connected to the global economy. What is the implication of this?


The implication is that while inequality in western countries and disenchantment within western countries can easily weaken the resolve of citizens on their most cherished values, Xi Jinping is engineering a cultural renaissance in China. This will boost nationalism and citizen moral there. Compare this to the West where you have cultural wars and inter-generational wars that are a huge threat to national cohesion and pride. But that is not the real threat. 


The real threat to the West is that while China is busy creating believers in the Chinese Communist ideology, Western citizens are growing apart from the systems of the West, there is no tool to drive this backwards, except prosperity and the urgent need for compromise among the political parties in Western countries, especially the United States. What we see is a class struggle that can lead to adoption of Fascism and corruption of years long democratic institutional development. The remedy is to narrow inequality and upturn many off-shoring initiatives. 

I think Biden has started this process. But the Maga irredentists are tough. Finally, we may have another Cold War in the offing, a cold war that no one will win in objective terms. My prediction is that Western enemies will double down on Cyber Attacks to steal Intellectual property and the use of Misinformation, fake news and other active measures to further disintegrate western society.

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