By all accounts, the Chinese are painfully aware of the analogy between the condition of their rising country and Germany prior to World War I. The issue has been studied extensively, and in public. I think they even had a TV series on it at one point.
Unfortunately for the Chinese, and possibly the world, Xi Jinping seems to have skipped school that day. China’s aggressive, nationalistic behavior is resembling that of Imperial Germany more by the minute. The change in tone probably helps Xi at home in the short run, but in the long run, it’s likely to unite a large part of the world against him.
We know what happened to Germany. Does Xi really want to risk the same fate?