About a year ago, a western acquaintance in Shenzhen had a small live history group discussion. He put forward the view that the current Chinese leader is very much like Emperor Yang of the Sui dynasty https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emperor_Yang_of_Sui, who was a very powerful emperor of the dynasty which preceded the Tang dynasty. He was famous for building the Grand Canal, formalizing the civil service examinations, and for a very large and expensive invasion of the Korean peninsula which bankrupted the nation, and eventually resulted in his assassination by his generals, and ending the dynasty.

Somehow the Chinese police found out about this group, and he got a warning to not talk like this again. The group was then disbanded.