One man rules

Optimists speculate that Xi Jinping’s power accumulation is the prelude to a burst of liberalising reform in his second five-year term as the Communist party’s general secretary, which will be consecrated at the current Congress. Nothing seems more unlikely, with the Chinese leader insisting in his marathon opening speech on Wednesday that his country should ‘strive for the great success of socialism with Chinese characteristics’ to take ‘centre stage in the world’. While he recognises the need for China Inc. to operate more efficiently, his chosen route lies through the reinforcement of the party state, the repression of dissent and the centralisation of his authority.

This represents a sea change in the direction of the last major Leninist state. As Deng Xiaoping pursued economic expansion from the late 1970s, he envisaged that while the party would retain overall control, it would devolve the running of the country to the government and encourage a consensus form of governance to avoid a Mao Zedong-style chief.