Xi, unlike his recent predecessors, has been indifferent to international reaction. He believes that the national security imperatives of “complete security” are more important than any foreign policy or wider reputational cost to the regime. Xi also believes that the rest of the world now depends on the Chinese economy so much that international political reactions to Chinese measures will, in the main, be superficial, symbolic, and temporary. The Chinese leadership has a long memory and can remember how international political and economic sanctions against China after Tiananmen in 1989
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