When Edgar Snow interviewed Mao in Bao An in 1936, the CPC was a bunch of “red bandits” hiding in northern Shaanxi, unknown to the outside world. By granting the American journalist his undivided attention over ten days, Mao got the publicity he needed for the party, the anti-Japanese war effort and the revolution, and Snow got the scoop, the material for reports and a book, and fame. A real win-win. In 1990, Jiang Ze Min did interviews with Mike Wallace and Barbara Walters. See them on YouTube. With the power of mass media, the The United Front Work Department 中共中央统一战线工作部, and the PRC diplomatic corps at his command 24/7 today, Chairman Xi is unlikely to need or want a foreign reporter to get his message out.