He seems quite qualified to me. What other geopolitical thinkers does China have?
Yes he is certainly qualified, but he is not some sort of geopolitical genius by any sense. A good analogy would be a very good senior tech lead in a company. Runs the team exceptionally well, highly technical, x10 developer and could mentor juniors as well as debug any production problem without breaking a sweat. Is he a tech visionary like Steve Jobs? Not really. But considering that his competition are geopolitical equivalents of OF models who are more adept at sucking a D than balancing a binary tree then he must look like a friggin visionary.