As it is the crowd that is concerned about the big guy, not the other way round, the weight of onus to build a bridge is probably on his side of the balance, as crowds can all too easily become a mob (which would not bode well for anyone). But for the possibility of real engagement the crowd also has to make efforts to participate genuinely in dialogue.

For his part, the big guy has sought to build a bridge by proposing the crowd and he work together for an Asia-Pacific dream featuring a spirit of common community and a sense of shared destinies. The proposal to build an Asian Security Concept based on common and comprehensive cooperative security and other initiatives such as the Asia Infrastructure Investment Bank serve as sort of "emoticons" for this message, in the way that pictorial shorthand conveys intent in virtual exchanges.

Like Zhuang Zi's account of his dream of being a butterfly, this dream is something that simultaneously looks both forward and backward beyond the immediate moment of dreaming. It is an extension of the big guy's own dream of the future, and one which can be acted on to bring into being rather than remaining a suspended possibility like Schrodinger's unobserved cat in a box.

Although the future is uncertain rather than fated, for the big guy destiny is an important shaper of the future which is being built on the past. During the carefully stage-managed first public outing for the new leadership at the Road to Rejuvenation exhibition in November 2012, Xi said the Chinese people have finally taken hold of their own destiny after suffering unusual hardship and sacrifice in the world's modern history. And it would be foolish to ignore the fact that for many Chinese, certainly those of Xi's generation, the bitter knowledge that their elderly ancestor was an ailing big guy who was mugged by a crowd of foreign powers is still an unhealed wound.

Speaking at the exhibition, Xi quoted both Mao Zedong and the Tang Dynasty poet Li Bai (AD 712 - 770). The Party was the agent of change that set the country on the path to the future. As leader of the Party and country at a point in time when the twin goals of reclaiming national pride and achieving people's well-being are within reach, Xi sees himself as an agent of history.

While even today, if you pull on one of the threads that make up the fabric of Chinese society, chances are it will unravel back to the days of Li Bai and beyond to Mencius and Confucius, perhaps further.

While new threads are becoming more prominent in the changing patterns woven by opening-up and globalization, the older threads are still fundamental to the societal weave, particularly perhaps for Xi's generation, which witnessed the 10 years of turmoil from 1966 to 1976 that resulted from efforts to destroy these older threads.

For those in the crowd, although they may not like the fact the big guy has grown to become the largest body of mass in the region, there is no reversing the process. They would do better to reflect on the path they can take together.

The author is a writer with China Daily. hannayrichards@chinadaily.com.cn