Robert Louis Stevenson, a 19th-century Scottish novelist, said, “Life is not a matter of holding good cards, but of playing a poor hand well.” Xi Jinping, the top Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leader, has just done the opposite. In recent years, Xi has made misjudgments on a series of major issues, resulting in him turning a good hand of cards into a bad one. This article attempts to analyze his major miscalculations and the reasons behind them. Xi Jinping’s Four Major Miscalculations First, let’s look at Xi’s miscalculation of China in a global context. On January 11, Xi said at the Party School of the CCP’s Central Committee that “the world is undergoing a great change unprecedented in a century, but the time and the trend are in our favor.” On February 25, Xi was quoted commenting on the international situation by saying that “the political judgment of the future … …