For a number of years, Chinese analysts who studied Chinese strategy found it difficult to find one. The level of fragmentation and the (bounded) plurality of interests discussed in the previous chapter were so great that what they found instead was a rather contradictory set of interests and drivers resulting in a lack of coherence in external action (Wang Jisi, 2011). For example, despite calling his book Inside China's Grand Strategy, Ye Zicheng (2011) focused on the myriad domestic problems at home that China had to sort out before it could do anything effective overseas. In particular, he highlighted what he portrayed as the almost impossible task of reconciling the views of ‘dogmatic conservatives’ on the one hand, and ‘extreme nationalists’ (of various varieties) on the other. Somewhat earlier, Shi Yinhong (2002: 4) bemoaned an absence of a shared understanding of what it was that China actually wanted to achieve and concluded that

In the first decade of the millennium, Men Honghua (2004; 2005) was one of the biggest critics of this lack of coordination. By 2015, while acknowledging that the job was still far from complete, he had become more confident. China was now moving, he argued, towards something that began to look like a truly integrated GS with ‘a profound strategic adjustment, gradually forming the future of China's long-term strategic layout’ (Men, 2015: 44). Three key reasons are usually given for this progress. The first is the widespread understanding in China that changes in the global environment had resulted in a rather unexpected shift in relative power capabilities, and China now had an opportunity to push for change that was previously lacking. The second is that Xi Jinping had implemented structural changes that facilitated much needed coordination among conflicting foreign affairs actors. The third was that his strategic thinking had established the fundamental objectives and diplomatic philosophy that Shi (2002) and others had argued was previously lacking.