The 20th Party Congress is another step in Xi's rise

Opening on 16 October 2022, China's 20th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party is virtually certain to see current President Xi Jinping confirmed as China's top leader for a third term. This will mark yet another step in China's steady slide towards a more personalist regime centred on a single individual. In the long-term, it will make China's domestic politics more unstable and increase the risk of Beijing's policies veering dramatically based on the whims of the top leader and his close associates. The purge of rivals such as Bo Xilai and Zhou Yongkang, the steady elevation of Xi himself in China's ideological pantheon, propaganda efforts to cultivate a cult of personality around himself, the refusal to designate a political successor at the 2017 Party Congress and now his steady march towards extended rule - all of these reflect a one-party system that is sliding in the direction of a personalist regime. By steering China back towards a system of one-man rule, echoing that of Maoist China or Russia under President Vladimir Putin, Xi risks replicating all of their governance failures as well. Such measures are clear warnings to Party cadres in the lead-up to the 20th National Congress that any rivals to China's top leader no longer risk merely their careers, but quite possibly their lives. He is the author of End of an Era: How China's Authoritarian Revival is Undermining Its Rise.