Xi Jinping, a lifelong soccer fan, hoped to marshal China’s collective spirit behind “the beautiful game.” In reality, he welcomed a fleet of vultures to feast on it.
President Xi Jinping and Chancellor Angela Merkel watch German and Chinese children playing soccer in a 2017 visit to Berlin. Credit: Ronald Wittek - Pool/Getty Images
In October of 2015, Chinese media announced Xi Jinping’s first selfie. China’s leader looked uncharacteristically jolly posing alongside the soccer star Sergio Aguero and then-British Prime Minister David Cameron, with Aguero snapping the trio’s photo. It quickly went viral. Argentine striker Aguero became an overnight sensation and his team, Manchester City, scooped up a sizable Chinese fanbase.
“Every person in the world asks me about the selfie,” Aguero later said.
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In January, the arrest of a Chinese national in the Philippines led to the unravelling of an alleged espionage operation coordinated from Beijing. In an excerpt from their upcoming book, The Great Heist, David R. Shedd and Andrew Badger look at the Manila “spy ring” and its possible connection to China’s hypersonic missile program.
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