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Yeah, I don’t understand it personally and I was also similarly shocked.

• seanmcdirmid 3y ago
  At least, after Xi, the last vestiges of Mao will be just history (the next Gen X Chinese leader will have been born after Mao died, or at least just a very little kid). This is why Xi becoming president for life was such a disappointment for me, I expect that the next generation of Chinese leadership will be much more modern (and Xi is the first monolingual/career politician leader modern China has had, hopefully that doesn't continue into the next generation).
  • SlightlyLeftPad 3y ago
    The elimination of term limits is huge red flag for me. My hot take is that it’s setting Xi up to lead a China into a global culture war long-term and I think it’s likely we’ll similar misguided Putinistic behavior before he’s gone as he continues to build his trusted circle of yes people over the coming decades. For a brief period around the pandemic period there was definitely a relatively short uptick in nationalist rhetoric but I believe that was more of a response to Trump’s sometimes contradictory statements on China and their leadership. Largely, in my relatively average sample size in discussions with chinese-born expats (possibly a bias). Xi is not a very popular leader, particularly among the more affluent population.
    • seanmcdirmid 3y ago
      Xi is much more popular among the masses vs Hu, Hu was a pretty weak leader, or at least, didn’t have much power. Affluent Chinese, you need to distinguish between northerners and southerners, the latter being much less nationalistic in general. During my last years in China (until mid 2016) I definitely noticed younger techies I worked with being more nationalistic than they were when I started my stint in China (2007)