Obviously, Xi is cool, but I wish people would leave Winnie the Pooh out of this. Pooh is happy and nice and pure, and takes me back to a simpler time in my life when I was a kid and things didn't fucking matter. Watch Pooh get stuck in Rabbit's door and tell me that shit isn't hilarious, no matter how old you are. I'm fucking 31 and still loved even the latest Pooh movie from like 2011.
Honestly, I think it was pretty dumb for China to try and quash the meme.
it's my understanding that Chinese political culture tends to look down on caricature, positive or negative
If Chinese people cared about what Redditors thought about them maybe. But it's pretty clear that Western perceptions of China are less and less relevant as China continues to develop.