Xi Jinping: With Unlimited Power Comes Unlimited Challenge

Chinese leader Xi Jinping (L) walks with (2nd L to R) Li Qiang, Li Xi, Zhao Leji, Ding Xuexiang, Wang Huning and Cai Qi, members of the Chinese Communist Party's new Politburo Standing Committee, China's top decision-making body, as they meet the media in the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on Oct. 23, 2022. Wang Zhao/AFP via Getty Images

Commentary

Xi Jinping has amassed a greater concentration of power than Mao Zedong and has greater power to suppress domestic and foreign opponents than any Chinese leader in history. And yet the threat to his—and the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP)—ability to retain power faces challenges of an enormity and imminence that Mao never knew.