He wanted to make his country a great power, and in his eyes, that meant building a high-tech manufacturing base, from which political and military power would naturally flow. The infant industries in the country could not survive without help in the face of foreign competition. So he proposed to protect them to the maximum extent possible, partly by tariffs, but mostly by well-designed subsidies and other, less obvious interventions in the market.
Is it Xi or Alexander Hamilton? You decide.