Hi Bill,

Two questions:

1) you have often said Xi has been "trying" for a long time to be referred to as helmsman in some combination of characters. At the same time, you portray him as/Xi obviously is in complete control. So it's never made sense to me why he would have trouble getting the media to refer to him in a certain way? There's always been a certain cognitive dissonance there that I'm sure has to do with internal party politics even if they're dominated by Xi, and I would be very curious as to your sense of exactly how those intraparty politics work on this issue?

2) you mentioned the party was shocked at the severity of US chip sanctions. At this point there seems to be a consensus in the US behind viewing China as a full Soviet style opponent. Chinese propaganda/diplomacy clearly then has been ineffective on the US, but it continues as before. My question is, do you think it is necessary for the US/Europe to put more resources into VoA style news where accurate information is put out about Xinjiang, Taiwan, the Chinese economy, Xi and other leaders' wealth etc, or is the ineffectiveness of Chinese propaganda on developed countries and the current consensus around treating China as a soviet-style opponent already enough such that we don't need to worry about the Chinese propaganda and can simply ignore it as shrill and attempt to have focused, principled discussions internally without wasting time refuting endless propaganda?