This a guest post from Chris Johnson, CEO of China Strategies Group and a former top China analyst at the CIA. Chris helps provide context for the recent round of PLA purges, and for what we may see at the now underway Fourth Plenum in terms of politics and personnel
Respectfully disagree. I don’t think Xi would relinquish power, mainly because once he does that, he can no longer protect himself. When his father was sent down during the Cultural Revolution, that is one of the lessons I think he would have learned and would never want to relive again. Is this the conventional analysis? Maybe - but my belief stems from Xi protecting himself whereas most of the others in this camp just see Xi as power hungry. A managed succession is a creative and intriguing thought and can’t be dismissed, but neither should the conventional wisdom in all of its forms.
Respectfully disagree. I don’t think Xi would relinquish power, mainly because once he does that, he can no longer protect himself. When his father was sent down during the Cultural Revolution, that is one of the lessons I think he would have learned and would never want to relive again. Is this the conventional analysis? Maybe - but my belief stems from Xi protecting himself whereas most of the others in this camp just see Xi as power hungry. A managed succession is a creative and intriguing thought and can’t be dismissed, but neither should the conventional wisdom in all of its forms.
Thanks for posting. It’s good to have reasonable perspectives that don’t reinforce the conventional wisdom.
Xi might be a good guy after all???? 🤨
It’s not looking good for Xi …