Wrt. this I don't Xi matters a lot. There is consensus in the broader Chinese leadership that China needs to move up the value chain to the point where it has leadership, and potential self-sufficiency, in all key industries and at the same time stimulate internal demand.

This is opposite of reality. House of cards (RE overinvestiment) of past leadership was inherited by Xi, who has been actively dismantling it for years, which he started early - RE square footage stagnated a few years after he started office. Meanwhile, almost every PRC strategic improvement that US is panicking over from PRC military modernization to MIC2025 to PRC moving up science/innovation, capturing higher value supply chains, PRC expanding trade influence was driven by Xi. He also inherited inertia from past efforts still it's been down to his guidance. Which is not to say he did "best" job, but good enough job that PRC strength on trend to grow under his trajectory, which we have 10+ years of data on.