Second, strong dictatorship characterises all three regimes. Even non-violent protest leads to jail. The Nobel Peace Prize winner Liu Xiaobo is only one well-known case among thousands.
Third, racism is at the heart of all three regimes. China today makes appeals to people in Taiwan and internationally as having "the same flesh and blood" and "shared blood vessels". Chinese law states that a Chinese who becomes a citizen of another country no longer has Chinese citizenship, but the Chinese state still considers such people as Chinese with an obligation to the fatherland. Minorities such as Tibetans and Uighurs face constant and systematic discrimination.
Fourth, all three regimes set up vast prison camps for political prisoners and others who were seen as threatening. Some might argue that China does not have "death camps", but the Nazis only created these in 1941, quite late in their regime.
Like the Nazi and the Japanese regimes in the 1930s, the Chinese today have become territorially expansionist. Like the Nazis and the Japanese militarists in World War II, the Chinese today perceive "appeasement" as weakness on the part of their opponents and push their claims with even more inflexibility.
Finally, all three regimes have used Hitler's theory of the "Big Lie" which Goebbels implemented so successfully. The Chinese "Big Lie" has proven partially successful in convincing several former Australian political leaders, among others, that China does have claims to the East China Sea islands.
The lessons of World War II teach us that appeasement of such regimes does not lead to peace.
Further, such regimes do not democratise even when they grow prosperous. China today is run by a coalition of party leaders, the military and rich entrepreneurs who all gain from the current situation and seek to maintain the status quo. Even though militarily defeated, the strength of the Nazi and Japanese regimes required the Allied forces to destroy both regimes systematically.
In other words, such regimes do not fall apart by themselves.
Fortunately, as China threatens more countries, they have begun to coalesce against it.
The world's democracies will need to stand firm and make clear that expansionism has no place. Such actions will promote peace in the long term as well as support those within China who continue to struggle for human rights.
