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I think the only conclusive (and boring) point here is that Xi has consolidated power to an extent that his predecessors could not. And he does appear to have firm support from the Chinese ruling class considering how he purged all but one on the standing committee of the CMC without much troubles. When he started his term, people were talking about how he was a compromise candidate between Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao’s factions, and how he was going to reign with a Taishang Huang pulling strings behind him, but those predictions aged poorly.
It does not inspire confidence, for sure, to see such a high ranking general purged for being a traitor to the country. It certainly makes one wonder whether they are all compromised in some way. That being said, “leaking nuclear secrets” in this case could be serious, but it could also refer to something more benign, like “informing the Americans that we have significantly built up nuclear capabilities, so think thrice before you move”. A decade or two ago, the Americans or even the Taiwanese could induce defections by offering better material conditions, supporting opposition factions, or providing opportunities to immigrate, or simply by attracting naïve party members through ideological pull. I seriously doubt that this is still the case, given the cost benefit analysis. They can be compromised by inside forces but hardly by outside.
I’m fairly convinced that close to no one on the internet has a knowledgeable take on this. Chinese or non-Chinese spectators alike are like a lonely man living next door to a couple having sex. It’s possible for the man to guess at their relationship and catch glimpses of the truth, and if something goes transparently wrong he’d notice that too, but most of their dirty talk in bed amounts to nothing, except attracting his attention. When Lin Biao killed himself in a plane crash in Mongolia, no one was expecting it, except maybe the politburo and his direct underlings. And even now, no one outside of the Chinese decision making circle knows whether Lin was actually, seriously disloyal, or whether it was all Mao’s paranoia. Chinese history books are filled with such incidents, where a ruling emperor lives too long to pass the baton to the crown prince, until simmering distrust forces the crown prince either to usurp the throne or to idle until being killed by the emperor/father. This is literally the most common trope in Chinese history besides barbarians knocking on our door. Future historians will debate whether the killing of Zhang San was the single gravest mistake of the emperor that led to the downfall of the dynasty, or whether it was completely justified and with the crown prince a traitor, the dynasty was doomed regardless. I’m not convinced they are making informative guesses either way. Historians, not unlike me, will judge based on outcomes and on how well the narrative fits the prevailing zeitgeist, but I’m not deluded enough to think those takes are entirely truthful.
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