[1996]

Rare to see such high quality content here. I share your analysis. But I believe Xi came at a time the mainland needed to be strengthened, to avoid being trumped over again (opium war like)

He is still needed? Maybe, because you said:

> The last 4 years saw rising nationalism in the US, and it has also been rising in Europe and in China. This is not good.

It is not good. Eventually the future for the mainland is bright, with good material condition and freedom. The situation is not ready yet. You can not "impose" democracy, the population must be ready.

But I believe all is done right and set for the generation being born now ("3 children per family") to be the happiest in the world.

[cromwellian]

Look, I understand the sentiment and context. China saw what happened in the USSR, and what's happening in India, and they are rightly fearful that a mob of 1 billion people who have not risen to the level of the 300-400 million middle class Chinese, pose an existential threat to the stability of the country if a power vacuum were left. They need to bring up the rest of the country to, ironically, prevent a communist revolution to the current "state capitalist" system they have.

The US came frighteningly close to instability during the Great Depression until FDR launched massive infrastructure projects, created social security, built 40,000 schools, created the GI Bill, etc.

But there is a such thing as overdoing it. I don't believe the current censorship is actually creating stability. Most educated Chinese know what's going on, can use VPNs, and the creativity of using anti-censorship terms on Weibo, shows people still want to criticize the government. (for example, mentioning Chloe Zhao was banned, so Chinese netizens started using her pinyin initials or English initials like CZ to refer to her, and the algorithms didn't pick it up)

Scarily enough, Xi has created such an atmosphere of nationalism, that "cancel culture" on behalf of "patriots" these days is enough to ruin someone, you don't even need the government to censor. If you criticize the government or China online these days, netizens will crush you.

See here: https://www.wsj.com/articles/in-xi-jinpings-china-nationalis...