Yea if pressed I would currently say there are two possible explanations for Xi's behavior--one, he's aware that the economy has stalled out but is unwilling/unable to transfer resources from the CCP to the people to get consumption up to get it going again, and realizes that he can use nationalism/ideological control to maintain CCP legitimacy even as the economy grinds to a halt for a generation or two (Japan style), or two, with Garnaut and Bill, he really is a Marxist and either doesn't understand the importance of consumption/the issue with inefficient SOE investment/CCP control of half the economy, or simply thinks that with Marxist handwaving it will all somehow go away. Either way, given that his policy is fundamentally hostile towards everything outside his faction of the CCP, and therefore cooperation is impossible so it will come down to power, the fact that his economy can't consume enough to keep itself going and is facing decades of grinding rebalancing is bad news for him (just as the possibility that the US could reelect Trump and fundamentally destroy its prime institutions such as a law-abiding presidency, an independent judiciary and a non-political military is potentially bad for the US, but at least the US has a chance to stop that this fall).