To the outside observer in late 2012, when Xi took over, it was not clear which way the new leadership would take the country, whether indeed Deng’s path of economic reform might at last continue into the realm of politics. But within a year or two the signs became clear. Xi himself, as characterised by one US diplomat, was ‘repulsed by the all-encompassing commercialization of Chinese society, with its attendant nouveaux riches, official corruption, loss of values, dignity, and self-respect’.
