Xi Jinping meets with representatives to the 11th general congress of the Red Cross Society of China (RCSC) at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, September 2, 2019. Credit: Xinhua/Alamy
For China watchers, the most noteworthy event of 2022 was the 20th Party Congress of the Chinese Communist Party, at which Xi Jinping officially obtained another five-year term as the general secretary. Having broken the less-than-three term norm established in the early 1990s, Xi has set the stage for his lifetime rule over China. However well or not he has governed in the past ten years, we can expect a similar process for some time to come, dictating outcomes in what is still set to be the world’s largest economy one day.
The composition of the top leadership Xi put in place at the congress also sent an important signal to the entire party about their career prospects. Top leadership changes in the past created uncertainty about potential winners and losers in the promotion tournament, which actually created incentives for policy innovation. With the perpetual leadership of one person and predictable patterns of promotion among senior officials, the vast majority of party
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