This analysis begs the main question though—is he aware that the main economic challenge facing the country is the need to rebalance? For the only way to help the underclass in any substantial way is through a major transfer of wealth from the wealthy (ie the ccp in particular which still controls 40-50% of the economy in a very inefficient way, the evidence for which is that the national debt has doubled catastrophically in a decade which is evidence the ccp infrastructure investment is now uNprofitable) to the underclass. But he seems to have ruled out any reform which will reduce the power, economic or political, of the ccp over the lives of the underclass, this dooming the economy to the fate of every other under consuming, investment led economy which is decades of stagnant on (bad I do mean every case, there are two dozen or so examples of the same model China is using all with the same result if you don’t rebalance).

Agreed on the second point as I think most would—like in all communist systems, by the second generation a bureaucratic elite develops which has extreme (relative) wealth and privilege and intoxicating absolute power and the imperative for them is to preserve their wealth and privilege and absolute power above all else.

As to the third point, again it begs the question, clearly he thinks it needs to go in a far more nationalist, ideological, shrill and aggressive direction, but the question as I posed it is why? Why does he want this direction? You said it’s hard to have a conclusion, fine, but it’s an important question and we should lay out the evidence as we see it to have the best understanding possible. That’s the only critical thinking way to get st the problem and so our best to understand the situation we find ourselves in. And the framework I laid out was I thought it was likely to be because either a) he realized rebalancing would be impossible and so needed to distract the population from lack of rising living standards with nationalism and mao-style control over everyone’s daily life, or b) he doesn’t realize rebalancing is important because he’s a Marxist and believes “the contradictions will somehow he resolved.” This is really the key question: how does Xi View the major challenger facing the country (need to rebalance economically)?