There has been plenty of speculation about this for a couple months right now - especially given the infighting in the CMC. I have some speculation around it as well, but it is essentially unsubstantiated and I have very mixed feelings about some of sources.

We will see what happens in the Fourth Plenum. If Xi resigns from one of his positions during the Plenum, then that is indication of a changing of the winds. If not, then this purging within the CMC and MOFA can be viewed as cleaning ship and solidifying primacy before potentially offensive action.

That said, this is all Beidaihe-ology until then.

At this point, the only outside commentator I trust to analyze Chinese elite politics is probably Nakazawa Katsuji at Nikkei [0]

[0] - https://www.nikkei.com/topics/17101600

It's july / august, summer lull for PRC political news, gov officials (including Xi) take breaks / reduce activity around now, no major political meetings or events. So queue retarded western Chinahands with helping dose from FLG tier actors doing their annual "palace intrigue" wank AKA Xi health / Xi power rumor cycle because there's nothing else to "report". Like clockwork.

E: I've actually never bothered to quantify pre LLM, but here's a lazy/cursory chatgpt chart of Xi public appearances, and O_O at pattern. TFW Xi gets stage 10 cancer in July, August but full remission by September. Make of it what you will.

https://imgur.com/a/QZi1tWD

> Hi there, thank you for your message.

> I am currently out of office on a two-week vacation. I will be returning to the office on June 5th. Until then, I will not have access to my emails.

> Kind regards,

> Xi Jinping. President, Chinese Communist Party. China