![Behind Xis smile image](https://hesselwillemsen.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/Behind-Xis-smile-image.jpg)
What’s behind Xi Jinping’s seemingly permanent Buddha smile? A diplomat’s answer might run along the lines of the secret strategic calculations that tell Xi the geopolitical balance of power is tilting his way. A sense of impending victory, hubris even. A psychologist’s answer might be different: it points not to victory, or to hubris, but to a force fundamental to China’s collective political psychology: shame.