To add to the above, here's Paxton's definition of fascism:
A form of political behavior marked by obsessive preoccupation with community decline, humiliation or victimhood and by compensatory cults of unity, energy and purity, in which a mass-based party of committed nationalist militants, working in uneasy but effective collaboration with traditional elites, abandons democratic liberties and pursues with redemptive violence and without ethical or legal restraints goals of internal cleansing and external expansion.
The above definition is one reason why arguments that China is fascist has little merit. It's not that China doesn't have any fascist indications (the modern PRC is nationalist, it does practice state capitalism, it does have revanchist tendencies), but that fundamentally, China is rising.
Its wealth, its power, its status, has all increased exponentially in the last few decades. Chinese people are, if not entirely happy, at least happier than much of the rest of the world, and in any case they tend to be optimistic self-critical where they fall short. They don't generally blame others - be it minorities, rich people, other countries, etc. - for their problems and they don't see themselves as victims of "those bad people over there." The CCP, for all its faults, has cultivated strength and confidence in the body politic, and Chinese people don't really see a reason to overthrow the international order because it's been beneficial to them. If not for the West constantly getting on China's ***, Chinese people wouldn't have any issues with the status quo.
On the other hand, the MAGA movement in the US is all of these things, and to the degree that Trump has made the US's economic and geopolitical situation worse, the perception and thus the temptation of fascism will only become stronger as more misery, more discontent, and more resentment emerges that MAGA fascists will blame entirely on others (especially China, liberals, and minorities). That's the scary thing - the worst it gets for Americans, the higher the chance of full-blown fascism. Without a liberal counter attack and economic revival, it is almost certain that the US will transform into a full-blown fascist state in the near future.
I'm patiently waiting knowing it might happen within October this year or much much earlier.
