One party rule can still have different levels of checks and balances.

Until recently, the power in China was divided between several people in the Standing Committee, loosely organized into two factions. The two factions alternated every several years (not based on elections but just a pre-agreed schedule). This was intended to prevent the leader from doing something too crazy even by CCP standards, like say another cultural revolution.

Now there's no alternating between factions because there's only one faction left. And, the power of the Standing Committee is much weaker. Xi has much more power than any leader for the past couple decades.

The risk of some insane decisions by Xi is therefore much greater: it's a lot more difficult for the rest of the party to stop him.

Of course, if you think Xi is a good leader, who is likely to help make China more prosperous and a more enjoyable place to live in, it's possibly a good news. But even then you should be worried about succession: how to prevent some insane leader from taking control of all this power in the future?

whenever that question gets brought up, I'm always confused why the laws allowing the leader excess power aren't written to expire when that leader loses power.

Consider that this two term limit was a clause in constitution and is now being removed. Who is going to put them back, possibly decades after, and how are they going to enforce it?

Let's say Xi has hypothetic son Xiao, a spoiled brat whom he's going to pass on the country in 2042. What are the chances that he'll be stopped by such a clause when he removed the terms limit in the first place?

> in a single-party government, how much will it really matter?

There are still intra-party factions. Xi’s anti-corruption drive is an effort to defang them. An arguable strength of China’s one-party system was that it had an odd sort of internal democracy, neatly contained to the party elite. Xi is disabling that internal disagreement, which bodes well for short-term stability but points, long-term, towards China becoming a normal sort of dictatorship.

The concept of "Party" works in very different ways in China as it does in western world.

When people in western governments started to form conflicting opinions, they'd say, let's create different parties and compete with each other.

When people in Chinese government started to form conflicting opinions, they'd say, let's keep the conflicts internal and unite under the same party.

As long as the opinions weren't so disagreeable that the Party leaders don't through the opposition into dungeons

The inner disagreement in Communist party of China could be as big as whether to adopt democracy or more central control of power; whether to stick to communism or drop it. That hadn't break the party into multiple ones so far

That must be what happened in the Chinese civil war.

Or during the Tiananmen massacre.

In both cases, for reasons unknown, thousands or more (hundreds of thousands) got slaughtered. Most had nothing to do with it.

It could, but if the revolutionary are to achieve success, many would need to react at the same time so the impact is swift and "unmanageable" by the Chinese government. It's not a coincidence that China recently filled all streets with one of the most advanced AI-powered video surveillance systems in the world ahead of this announcement.

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/china-surveillance-came...

If the Chinese government is able to "kill" (not necessarily in a metaphoric way) any small groups organizing against the government, then it will be very difficult to change this.

If Putin succeeded in becoming a dictator in Russia, I think it's going to be easier for Xi to become a dictator and maintain his power in China.

I'm afraid it may be more likely for some of the Chinese elites that secretly hate and oppose Xi to start something up than for the population to rise at this point in time. Maybe in 20 years, the frustration in the population would bubble up and they could do something about it en mass. Or China could become a bigger version of North Korea.

The advancements in technology don't really seem to be on the people's side either, other than censorship-resistant (a key point, as not all are) blockchain technologies. But I'm not sure these P2P technologies will advance fast enough to stay ahead of Surveillance AI.

"If Putin succeeded in becoming a dictator in Russia, I think it's going to be easier for Xi to become a dictator and maintain his power in China."

Not sure what this means... In what sense is Putin not a dictator already? Despite the illusion of free elections (almost universal in dictatorships), widespread vote tampering, the imprisonment of opponents and prohibition of alternative parties make his rule absolute.

I think you are misunderstanding mtgx. He says that Putin has already suceeded in becoming a dictator (hence the past tense). If he has already suceeded it should be easy for Xi to become a dictator.

Heh, my first reaction was the same as mtgx. Look at the dictators/semi-dictators/wannabe-dictators in major countries around the world now:

1. USA - Trump

2. Turkey - Erdogen

3. Russia - Putin

4. India - Modi

Meanwhile Macron won a highly contested race in France against a far right candidate, Merkel did something similar.

When the democracies in the world are in such disarray and can't band together to collectively act as a check on authoritarianism, it emboldens the latter.

Both Xi and communist party wants stability and economic growth, and they cannot get that if they can't keep most of the people happy.

Even with media censorship, the Chinese government has to react to people's comments (and a lot of times, much faster and effective than western governments, contradictory to what western media wants to believe)

They might be able to rapidly react to people's concern, but let's not forget that this is a concern only when an issue ignites concern for a sufficiently large number of people, and usually when the issue is dire enough to force them to act, or incite anger in them.

Often times the reactions are short term and not very good solutions either. See China's economic policies after 2008 that helped keep the economy afloat but have caused much concern from many well-known economists.

Let me just say that personally I think China has done a fantastic job of industrializing rapidly, lifting millions from poverty and destitution. I have serious concerns about the same ideas working to push China into the future though; which is why its very important to foster creativity and allow dissent even though its uncomfortable for those in power.

One thing that often comes to mind is how upto the 17th century Chines economy was the biggest and its military and Naval might were unparalleled in the history of the world (except perhaps the Romans before). Then an inward focused policy of sealing the country against contact with the outside weakened the country into destitution. So bad political policies have real consequences and this news makes me much more concerned that they will be repeated.

I think it matters. Mr Hu cannot be said to be the same as mr Xi. Now, I think it was good for them to have someone like mr Xi tackle institutional corruption, even with its purge-like effects, given the entrenched corruption was not doing the country any favors. But you still need turnover and new ideas and renewal at the top.

This is a good question and the fact is that regardless of its formal organization there are still many factions who disagree with each other, even though the expression of that disagreement doesn't look like a western presidential/parliamentary democracy.

Fact that they went to a great length to secure his position means that it really matters. Maybe the relationships that he has build over years with foreign nations is too valuable to lose or there is no suitable candidate to replace him.