I'm seeing several comments in the thread comparing China today to Germany pre-World War II. I just happen to be reading an old copy of William Shirer's Berlin Diary, based on his coverage of Germany from 1934 through the Olympics and up until the war. The parallels are obvious. 1. Hitler worked up the German people into an absolute nationalistic frenzy and sought to reunify them all, whether in Czechoslovakia or Austria. His propaganda machine was essential in doing all this. He got people to buy into his vision of German supremacy. 2. Hitler re-armed and marched into the Rhineland against his country's agreements with Britain and France, but the democracies were curiously ineffective in responding. Shirer could see where it was all headed but the Western allies couldn't respond to Hitler's step-by-step amassing of power, culminating in the Munich accords of 1938. 3. Hosting the 1936 Olympics was a huge PR coup for the Nazis. They flew in dignitaries and showed off their new toys, winning a measure of acquiesence. I'm not a believer in history repeating itself, but there seem to be clear parallels.