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President Xi Jinping wore a modified Mao suit to a state dinner hosted by the Dutch royal family in Amsterdam on Saturday, eliciting surprise from Chinese citizens who are used to their leaders’ sartorial decisions being a model of suit-and-tie uniformity.

The chatter about Mr. Xi’s outfit follows extended online discussion of the clothing of his wife, Peng Liyuan, and that of Michelle Obama during the American first lady’s trip to China with her mother and daughters, which began last week.

The discussion of the first ladies’ apparel choices prompted objections that the women should be accorded significance for far more than what they wear, and that male leaders are rarely subjected to fashion analyses.

Mr. Xi wore a modified version of what is known as a Mao suit in English, but a Zhongshan suit in Chinese — a reference to Sun Yat-sen (Sun Zhongshan in Mandarin), the founder of the Republic of China who is credited with popularizing the military-style tunic. Mr. Xi’s version was a modernized take with an upturned collar that replaced the traditional four bulky patch pockets with three sleeker ones, including one on the left breast, where Mr. Xi placed a dotted pocket square.

“Chairman Xi’s Mao suit has been improved upon, because the hidden buttons have a modern, simplified style,” wrote Sun Zhengxue, a painter, on his Sina Weibo account. “This is a model of combining modern Chinese and Western styles.”

China’s leaders seldom attract attention for their choice of clothing, which for the past two decades has tended to be been dark Western suits and ties on formal occasions. But major changes do provoke notice. In December 1978, Zbigniew Brzezinski, then the United States national security adviser, reacted with surprise when the Chinese ambassador to the United States, Chai Zemin, arrived at a meeting wearing a Western suit and tie instead of his usual Mao suit.

“I don’t recognize you!” Mr. Brzezinski said, according to a transcript.

“Yes,” the ambassador replied. “I am becoming Westernized.”

That meeting occurred two years after Mao’s death, just before the United States and China normalized relations, at a time when China was just beginning to embrace market-oriented economic changes. As an ambassador in Washington, Mr. Chai was perhaps more likely to adopt Western attire. It wasn’t until a televised address by the general secretary of the Communist Party, Hu Yaobang, in 1984 that China would see a leader in a Western suit.

In the years that followed, clothing made a statement about ideology. When Mr. Hu was forced to step down as party leader in 1987 over his handling of student protests, a reporter for The Chicago Tribune, Joseph A. Reaves, noted that the television announcer wore a Mao suit.

“That seemed significant because the baggy, high-collared tunic is the unofficial uniform of conservative party members, while reform-minded party members tend to wear Western suits,” he wrote.

But Mr. Xi’s style choice is unlikely to have such ideological import. His predecessors, Hu Jintao and Jiang Zemin, on occasion wore Mao suits for public events, such as anniversaries of the founding of the People’s Republic of China. The state-run China Daily sought to play down speculation over the possible political significance of Mr. Xi’s attire, saying his choice of a Chinese-style suit reflected “national pride and confidence in Chinese culture.”