The congress wasn't a one-sided victory for Xi no longer described as 'people's leader'

The congress wasn't a one-sided victory for Xi  no longer described as 'people's leader'

One month after the Communist Party's national congress, Chinese state media have stopped calling President Xi Jinping "the people's leader."
 
A source hinted that there has been an implicit agreement to refrain from promoting the phrase from here on.
 
Despite Xi securing a cabinet full of loyalists, the failed attempt to establish "the people's leader" as an official phrase hints that the congress wasn't a one-sided victory for Xi.
 
When this development is taken into account, the recently concluded week of diplomacy in Indonesia and Thailand perhaps takes on a new meaning.
 
Xi shed his wolf-warrior coat and conducted smile diplomacy. It may be that Xi needs to rebuild China's diplomacy amid its international isolation to overcome the challenges he faces in domestic politics.
 
Yet, Xi himself couldn't hide the wolf in him when he confronted Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau through a translator over alleged leaks of their informal meeting. It was a moment in which his carefully planned choreography went off script.