Let's not put Xi on a pedestal. His family is certainly corrupt as heck (like all the princeling families of Mao's companions that dominate Chinese politics), as the NYT investigated (and this led to it being banned by the Great Firewall) and his anti-corruption drive is highly selective.
He has also done tremendous institutional damage to the PRC by rolling back Deng's reforms and going back to the Mao model of, ahem, governance. That Xi himself is a relatively competent leader does not guarantee his successors will also be, and you have to consider how Mao killed more people than Hitler and Stalin combined through sheer incompetence to understand how dire the consequences could be.
It's interesting given his family history: his father was purged by Mao, rehabilitated by Deng, but eventually also fired by Deng. Xi Jinping had a very hard time after his father's fall from favor, and some have compared his adoption of Maoism as a form of Stockholm Syndrome.
Xi also overreached by challenging the US too soon rather than bide his time and wait another couple of decades by which point China could have weaned itself from dependence on the US for tech like semiconductor fabrication and been much less vulnerable.
Xi's model of governance is essentially the traditional Chinese model of an Emperor aided by a mandarinal bureaucracy, just with engineering substituting for study of the Confucian classics as training mode for the mandarins. Chinese politicians' advancement is conditional on them meeting GDP growth objectives (now also environmental indicators), essentially it's run just like Google with its OKRs.
For you last paragraph, that's been the Chinese model since Mao. The only substantial difference between the imperial governance and that of the current regime is that the emperor is selected by an albeit small committee, provided the candidates are top ranks in the bureaucracy before a specific age, not granted through birth.
Sure, but whether the Emperor is selected by accident of birth or by committee matters far less than how the bureaucracy is managed. A good example is how the authorities in Wuhan tried to cover up the coronavirus pandemic, but once the central government found out about the situation, Xi acted decisively (and effectively, it turns out) to stamp it out.
Every monarchy in history has had to deal with unreliable minions. Usually they deal with it using a secret police, and another secret police to watch over the first secret police, and so on.
> Xi also overreached by challenging the US too soon rather than bide his time and wait another couple of decades by which point China could have weaned itself from dependence on the US for tech like semiconductor fabrication and been much less vulnerable.
Yes but he wouldn’t be alive by then. It also helped unite his citizens to a common enemy to ensure he had continuing support while he selectively purged powerful party members that wasn’t on his side. I am sure he weighted the consequences and determined China was economically powerful enough for a long fight.
Not based off my opinions but assessements of intelligence dossier from CIA on Xi's background, his reputation prior to elevation as Shanghai party secretary and opinion of eminant China hand Lee Kuan Yew. Enough intelligence from credible sources comports to Xi's character to dispel generic corrupt princeling narrative. I was a Xi skeptic, he's uncharismatic, doesn't seem intelligent, but in retrospect, he appears to be the genuine article.
> done tremendous institutional damage to the PRC
He dug PRC out of the exitentially corrupt hole when Deng's reform ran it's course, i.e. growth + decadence that led to thorough CIA infiltration. Enter anticorruption drive and national security policies that purged all the foreign influence, finally securing restive territories like XJ, Tibet, HK. Obviously succession might be an issue, but he mitigated otherwise existential crisis. Short term that takes precedence. Just like Mao kept the country together at cost of 60M lives is bluntly far from dire at PRC scale. Sure Xi's family might be corrupt, but grafting a little on the side (again millions/billions is peanuts relative to CCP scale) does not mean his overall governance of the country does not focus on right priorities and outcomes, i.e. Xi's fixation to expedite the creation of durable insitutions that is designed to outlast any one individuals reign is a worthwhile gamble.
> interesting given his family history
This is generic pathologizing by lazy China watchers who has gotten more wrong than right. Again, evaluate Xi based creditable sources that actually interacted with him. There's too much China Collapse, CCP corrupt memes substianted by nothing but feelings and reguritated ad nauseum.
> Xi also overreached by challenging the US too soon
No, Xi responded to US pivot to Asia under Hu. Containment already proceeded Xi, and wild card Trump is not something that even Xi could anticipate / manage, which by all accounts he did well until covid19, another wildcard. 10Trillion GDP China in 2017 already could not hide + bide anymore, US reeeing at China threat in the last few years was in response to PRC modernizing military with less than NATO's 2% in defense spending. The fact that Xi actually committed to modernizing PRC military compared to BoXiLai who was buddy with corrupt PLA brass is absolutely clutch to mitigating ongoing US containment efforts. Side effect of Deng's development model / hide & bide = being helpless @ US bombing PRC embassy in Kosovo, US carriers groups sailing through strait during cross strait crsis', pre-NSL HK becoming spy capital of Asia etc etc. Semiconductor bans was happening under Obama as well, pre Xi. Again your timeline is backwards, Xi anticipated and mitigated ramp up in US containment efforts. Cannot stress this point enough. That alone, makes him the BEST possible successor to Hu. 5-10 years late in building up coercive military power = huge opportunity for US to shift regional balance. Forcing potential US supporters to hedge by no longer biding was not overreach, it was presient. Xi is doing something spectactularly right when Trump, who filled his cabinent with all the worst China-hawks, like Pompeo, still didn't sail US Carriers through TW strait during the worse break in relations in generations.
>Xi's model of governance
That's a very reductionist view of governing the most populous country with lots of domestic and international components including competition with US. With respect to the topic, how does it address PRC's tech regulation. To be similary pithy, Xi is closing the comprehensive power gap with US during an extremely vital time where both countries are at their most vunerable and with future hegemony on the line. IMO he's doing more right than wrong.
He has also done tremendous institutional damage to the PRC by rolling back Deng's reforms and going back to the Mao model of, ahem, governance. That Xi himself is a relatively competent leader does not guarantee his successors will also be, and you have to consider how Mao killed more people than Hitler and Stalin combined through sheer incompetence to understand how dire the consequences could be.
It's interesting given his family history: his father was purged by Mao, rehabilitated by Deng, but eventually also fired by Deng. Xi Jinping had a very hard time after his father's fall from favor, and some have compared his adoption of Maoism as a form of Stockholm Syndrome.
Xi also overreached by challenging the US too soon rather than bide his time and wait another couple of decades by which point China could have weaned itself from dependence on the US for tech like semiconductor fabrication and been much less vulnerable.
Xi's model of governance is essentially the traditional Chinese model of an Emperor aided by a mandarinal bureaucracy, just with engineering substituting for study of the Confucian classics as training mode for the mandarins. Chinese politicians' advancement is conditional on them meeting GDP growth objectives (now also environmental indicators), essentially it's run just like Google with its OKRs.