[dear]

It is said (by his acquaintances) that Chairman Xi is not a smart guy ("brain dead" is the word). He only has elementary to junior high level of education. Anything higher (including his "PhD") is fake.

His solution to every problem is fight (power struggle) until all your opponents are down. It may work in China's party politics but if taken to the international level, it fails. You can see this same solution being applied to the handling of Hong Kong.

He also believes that China is invincible because they have this massive supply chain thing which nobody else has.

[scarecrowboat]

Genuinely curious -- do you have a source for this?

[dear]

Yes, I didn't make those things up. They are not all from a single source though. I don't keep a list of everything I have read but here is one (in chinese):

https://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-tw/%E6%9D%8E%E9%94%90_(1917%E5%B...

https://www.voachinese.com/a/voanews-20180413-former-secreta...

[xiphias2]

Can you do an English TLDR?

The scary part of the Chinese strategy is conteolling people with AI and social credit score together. So far it seems that it works.

[repolfx]

Both links say the same thing - one old man, an expert on the history of the CCP, says Xi Jinping has a low level of cultural intelligence. They don't support the idea of this being a widespread notion.

[dear]

My original post is the TLDR.

As for control, intense power struggle is happening at the top right now, between Xi fraction and his opponents. Of course due to the opaque nature of Chinese politics nobody is sure.

Xi wants to be China's most powerful man since Mao but he is very insecure. So he is tightening control of the whole China, including Hong Kong (the extradition bill). It is working in the mainland but in Hong Kong it caused a blowback.

[xiphias2]

Thanks!

For me as an outsider it looks like Chinese people are scared from another massacre (for a good reason), but it's interesting to know that Xi's power doesn't look that stable for you.