When Allied soldiers liberated the first concentration camps as they marched through Germany in WWII, they were shocked by what they found. Yes, everyone at that time was aware that the German Nacional Socialist Party promoted an extremely racist agenda, even for the standards of the time. But they had never expected it to have gone so far. It was the cold, ruthless, and systematic nature of dehumanization and extermination of fellow humans that the Nazis carried which shocked the world once uncovered. This, however, was not the cause of the war. Far from it, the only reason why allied nations mounted brutal resistances and large assaults against the Nazi war machine was because it was a defensive war. It was the Germans who attacked first. Allies merely reacted to their aggression. This then poses an interesting prerogative: Would Allied nations have gone to war had they known what was going on at Auschwitz or Dachau, even if the Fascist Apparatus had kept itself to its own borders?

One would like to believe that our Western sensibilities would kick in and force us to take up arms to defend the victims of such savagery. That the uproar caused by something as horrifying as a government rounding up racial and religious minorities and imprisoning them in forced labor camps with the main objective of exterminating them would be heard around the world and prompt governments to action. Unfortunately, that hypothesis can be tested today, and the answer is a resounding NO. Among the nations of today exists a state that is Fascist in all but name. A nation with a long and brutal history of oppressing their people and being responsible for tens of millions of deaths. This country rises as a world power today and, not only that, but it wields a massive amount of influence around the international community. This nation is the ironically named People’s Republic of China.

The Chinese nation presents itself as a socialist nation that figured out how to do capitalism right. Contrary to their now deceased Soviet Parents, the Chinese evolved beyond the rigid economic ideologies that led to the collapse of the Soviet Empire by the end of the 80s. This new Chinese state avoided the Russian fate by being introduced into the World Trade Association after former president Richard Nixon opened diplomatic relations with them. However, the fact that they integrated capitalistic practices into their economy did not change some of the key precepts that characterize autocratic dictatorships. Some of these precepts are the single party system, the centralized economy, and the subservient economy. In short, this means that even though commerce can be carried out by Chinese nationals, these must be sanctioned and approved by party officials, and thus most (if not all) sectors of the economy act as arms for the Chinese Communist Party.

As a connoisseur of Communism (not by choice mind you) I can argue for the falseness of the Communism the Chinese government proclaims. Yes, they keep the massive governmental structure that has the power to infringe all human rights without anything to oppose them, but the original Marxist economic ideology that serves as the foundation for Communism has long been abandoned. No, what remains it is not a new way of doing socialism, but one of the oldest. Yes, China is a Fascist nation by design, as Fascism seeks to take advantage of capitalism instead of destroying it, but only if it serves the almighty government. Fascists do not dream of utopia; they dream of empire. First Secretary Xi’s dreams are no different from those of Hitler or Mussolini, and neither are his tactics, albeit much more advanced. Thus, they flex their massive economic muscles to gain influence over other nations whilst waging war on their own people.

Furthermore, recent developments have uncovered the existence of concentration camps in the western edges of China. Houses of horror in which Muslim Uygur minorities are forcibly hauled into to do hard labor and be submitted to all sorts of degradations, humiliations, and torture. It is not conjecture anymore, there are images of trains full of these minorities that so much remind the world of the horrors of the Holocaust. Physical and sexual violence has been reported to run rampant in these camps, as one would expect from a Fascist nation. All of this committed only because they are different – because they think different from what the Government tells them. There is no doubt: China is a Fascist Nation.

It is baffling to see how so many influential entities claim to wage open war on Fascism within western countries whilst either ignoring or being complicit with the greatest Fascist power in existence. Companies such as Disney and the NBA and figures such as Lebron James have bent the knee to this Fascist superpower over and over in the name of the almighty dollar. But it would be wise to ask them how do they think history will remember them?

By David Jorge, Cuban Expat. David is a nutritional consultant and co-founder of Hope Initiative Consulting, LLC. David has earned his B.A. in psychology and is interested in cultural analysis, politics, psychology, and philosophy.