>I back up my assertions.

Not really. Your assertions have been Xi sucks / his decisions are bad, then quote XYZ trope about authoritarian governance from western perspective. It's dogmatic like "at least India has free press and transparency"... because democracy gud??? Reality is Xi's performance has been overall good for PRC interests.

> 'progress' for insane sociopaths

It was never the less "right" progress. Mao was bad statesman for right goals. Like I said, he was excessive and did the hard things sometimes poorly, but it was important to do them none the less. Ditto with Xi. Zhou corrected Mao's excess. Someone will correct Xi's excess. But they will also all build off the "necessary" foundation Mao and Xi built. PRC simply could not be where it is if population trapped by old culture and social structure.

> India does NOT have the hunger levels of North Korea.

Go look up hunger indexes over last 20 years. India is at North Korean level. Or excess death studies due to poverty. Hundreds of millions, mostly children dead. Because India is a fragmented multicultural society with broken free press and transparency that can't coordinate for their citizens well being. India is what happens when you don't have "immortal rulers" doing the hard, dirty but necessary work. Because democracy sucks for development. Which is why I'm fine with Xi doing what he does. Authoritarianism is the worst form of government for developing countries... except for all the others.

>everyone else in the world has more or less forgotten.

...and PRC? The actual party that matters. Consistently being preoccupied with non-PRC interest and non-PRC POV when discussing the PRC is asinine. Why does it matter what others or diasphora are embarassed by? They don't matter. XJ terrorism stopped. HK is firmly under PRC control. This makes PRC citizens happy, and forwards interest of PRC. GLF and CR at least got that 30% bad label. This applies to the rest of yoru comments re: conflating Pivot to Asia policy to... history of US in east asia, TPP as magic China containment meme, Xi not worrying about Trump 2nd term. You can call/compare Xi to who/whatever. Still doesn't change the fact that has been massive boon for PRC interests. He's not looking for your forgiveness.

>Under Deng's policies it did.

And how did that work out? A bunch of political and people-to-people linkages that ultimately revealed the extend of US infiltration into PRC political systems. Why do you think the new animosity exist? Because PRC under Xi, eliminated foreign NGOs, intelligence networks and other sources of foreign influence that dangerously upset the system - the cost result of drawing closer to US orbit. Security dilemma trumps trade at end of day. Again see HK. I don't care if people refer to TW as country like it's a gotcha.

> Now you have many countries going out of their way to provide more economic support to Taiwan. That is directly Xi's fault.

Who didn't affirm 92 consensus? PRC or TW/DPP. Or TW Sunflower movement in 2014 that protested against trade integration with PRC before Xi did anything. The undercurrents were there, Xi didn't create it. So far, TW support has been marginal, and only beacause TSMC dominantes (for now). It's something to be managed, but ultimately there's no cultural or economic victory with TW.

>CIA report was very accurate

Except... he hasn't bumbled outside of this imaginary CIA report. He may very well in time, because he's tackling the hard things previous leaders couldn't. And from PRC perspective of his track record, there's a good chance he'll do well. The amount of irrationally angry western reporting on diifcult reforms CCP can tackle but west systemically can't will probably tell you how well.

Look we're clearly not going to agree on Xi. I'll eat my hat if PRC collapses in 2028.