The US famously has a clear line of succession that goes down a long way, all the way to the Washington DC Municipal Dogcatcher or someone, and nominally is run by impartial institutions. Trump and his Supreme Court have weakened these somewhat, but they theoretically still stand, so that if a succession was triggered, there’d be considerable institutional inertia pushing to return to some form of equilibrium.
Xi’s personal power over the CCP, and in turn, the Chinese state, seems to be a lot greater. There are no judges or delegates who would push back against him, and the principles of rule are what he says they are. It was similar with Mao, whose death precipitated conflict and instability.
There are about half a dozen people in the Politburo that chose him and his predecessors. Take that out, which is not really that many people, and yeah there would be issues.
The US famously has a clear line of succession that goes down a long way, all the way to the Washington DC Municipal Dogcatcher or someone, and nominally is run by impartial institutions. Trump and his Supreme Court have weakened these somewhat, but they theoretically still stand, so that if a succession was triggered, there’d be considerable institutional inertia pushing to return to some form of equilibrium.
Xi’s personal power over the CCP, and in turn, the Chinese state, seems to be a lot greater. There are no judges or delegates who would push back against him, and the principles of rule are what he says they are. It was similar with Mao, whose death precipitated conflict and instability.
There are about half a dozen people in the Politburo that chose him and his predecessors. Take that out, which is not really that many people, and yeah there would be issues.