[federona]

China is in some ways like pre-WWI Germany in that it does not have an empire and everyone else does so it wants one to. But Chinese are not starving due to sanctions and have not lost a war, etc. Chinese are doing well. China is just flexing its muscle because it can. That is all. Not because it needs to or that it's people are psychologically in fascism mode.

[dmix]

Bingo, comfortable upwardly mobile populations aren’t too friendly to any sort of serious war. Let alone total

A majority in an agitated state that is being repressed or prodded (realistically or not) by other power blocs is what is worrying.

Even ideological extremism most just happens locally. Like the Russian socialist Revolutions and countless jihads.