Bill Chen
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Lives in SingaporeMon
Why was China not perceived in the West to be as aggressive under Hu Jintao and Wen Jiabao as under Xi Jinping? What had changed?
Some years ago when trump was in charge, I heard an interesting theory from a mainland friend.

Let's call him laocheng.

He was the one who told me about the Chinese grapevine that had predicted trump's victory in 2016 based on the election promotional materials ordered by each side.

为什么老美搞中国？因为他们急了。(why did the US mess with China? Because they started panicking.)

Laocheng explained that when Xi assumed power during obama's second term, his corruption sweep removed the cia's eyes and ears at the highest levels of government. No one was spared, not even the top military guy or the level 1 politburo civil servant. External spy rings that ran with dissidents and business mavericks were also shut down. Those that remained were kept around because they were still useful, like the two Michaels.

China returned to a government structure that money and values found hard to penetrate.

The United States faced an increasingly opaque “enemy” that it had massively underestimated for decades. What made matters worse was China lucking into the strongest leader it had since Deng, a once in a generation talent that could command the unquestioned respect of the Chinese nation.

Xi doesn't just enjoy the adulation of his fellow citizens. He commands the loyalty and unity of the nation.

In other words, he gets things done, and so far, he has laid a firm runway for China to take off into the 21st century.

That is why he has come to personify China and morphed into the demon that the rest of the world must fix and bring down.

In order to do that, the China threat theory must be amplified and personified by Xi, to dumb it down for public consumption.