The National Security Perspective of Xi Jinping

It's really hard to know exactly what's going through Xi Jinping's head. It's possible that 2012 through 2014 he saw heightened frictions with the United States or with other countries and needed to pursue a policy of retrenchment. I think Peter Martin's book talks about Xi Jinping being known from his early days as being a somewhat hardliner in terms of China's restoration internationally.