Xi Formed View of Trump After 2016 Upset, Seeing Himself as Philosopher King

1 articles · Updated · The New York Times · May 13

Nearly 10 years after Donald Trump’s 2016 election win, accounts from closed-door meetings show Xi Jinping was baffled that U.S. voters chose such an unconventional candidate.
Ben Rhodes, who attended Xi’s final 2016 summit meeting with Barack Obama in Lima, said Obama explained Trump’s rise as rooted in economic frustration over lost manufacturing jobs and intellectual-property theft linked to China.
Xi appeared displeased with that explanation, according to Rhodes — an early reaction that the report says may have shaped how China’s leader has approached Trump ever since, including this week in Beijing.
The broader portrait from diplomats’ recollections and occasional hot-mic moments is of a leader with no close domestic rivals who lectures weaker counterparts and carries himself like an ancient-style philosopher king.

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