Don’t get stewed up about Xi Jinping

He is alive and kicking – hard

The Thinker | No. 06/2025

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Rumours of the imminent or actual political demise of Xi Jinping, General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), have been cooking these past weeks. Leadership politics in the People’s Republic of China (PRC) are always obscure, lending aid to conspiracy in its perennial battle against sober analysis.

In the gallimaufry of ‘evidence’, every rumour has been diced and thrown into the pot. Thus, Xi disappeared for two weeks in May. Omnipresent and omnicompetent, Xi almost never leaves the front pages of party media, yet references to him tailed off. Party elders have been ‘making a comeback’ or ‘out on manoeuvres’ (never mind that those cited – Hu Jintao, former General Secretary of the CCP and President of the PRC, and Wen Jiabao, former Premier of the PRC – have a combined age of 164, and the former is clearly senile). The ‘Princeling’ and ‘Shanghai’ factions are emerging from their comas. The May politburo meeting did not take place, and other economic commissions led by Xi have met only sporadically. He did not chair a recent Central Military Commission (CMC) meeting. Military leaders appointed by Xi have been removed, and ‘elements within the army’ are among those ‘moving against Xi’. A meeting with Aleksandr Lukashenko, President of Belarus, did not follow normal protocol: it was held in Xi’s house, not official buildings, and photographs were few.

This stew has been seasoned by comments from Taiwanese, dissidents, YouTube (clicks often earn more advertising money than truth) and other disaffected commentators. It smacks of comfort food: Xi has made the PRC a threat, and if he goes, things will get better. But Xi is not going soon.

Nevertheless, the stew or slew of ‘evidence’ does need explanation – or at least contradiction, since the obscurity of CCP top level politics prevents certainty. A more likely guess is that Xi underwent a medical procedure in May. It happens. He is 72 years old, and in the last nearly 13 years of power, his punishing schedule allows him only a short break by the seaside in August. Leaders, like cars, sometimes need to go into the garage for servicing.

This would explain much of the ‘evidence’, such as why there was no May politburo meeting (nor, by the way, was there one in May 2023, so it is not unprecedented), or why Xi did not chair the CMC meeting. If he was recovering from an operation, a home meeting with Lukashenko would be medically wise. Moreover, Xi’s appearances in the People’s Daily, the party’s newspaper, have been no fewer than during the same period last year.

Talk of factions and party elders is outdated. There is only one faction in the PRC: Xi’s faction. Xi has taken down both actual and potential political opponents. The elders, now out of power for over 12 years, are doddery, their networks atrophied or destroyed. Every year in August they go to the seaside resort of Beidaihe. It was no coincidence that as early as August 2015, their stay was marked by a prominent article in the People’s Daily, which emphasised the theme of ‘not reheating cold tea’; a warning to retired leaders to steer clear of politics. Or else.

Some things do require a wider explanation. Why were there so few meetings over the past year of the important policy setting bodies, the Central Comprehensively Deepening Reform Commission and the Central Financial and Economic Affairs Commission, both of which are chaired by Xi? And what is going on in the military, where many generals appointed by Xi have been taken down?

Again, we are reduced to speculation, but conspiracy is unlikely to be the answer. It may be that Xi believes that current policies, centring on investment in new technologies and the industries which they spawn, will restore economic growth. Xi has been steering clear of deep-going reforms which would rebalance towards domestic consumption as the engine of growth, since they require handing decision-making powers to private companies and individuals. That risks provoking demands for political reforms (‘no taxation without representation’), a threat to the CCP’s hold on power. If policy is not to be changed radically, why meet?

As for the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) – the PRC’s armed forces – to lose some generals may be regarded as a misfortune, but to lose so many looks like more than carelessness. However, it does not look like serious opposition, even if there must be many in the army who loathe Xi, his military reforms and his controls. If anything, it is a demonstration of the completeness of his control. Even some who, by virtue of past association, are considered his allies have been taken down. Xi has made it very clear that he will not tolerate those whose performance falls short of his wishes or who are corrupt. A recent article in the party’s ideological journal quotes Xi as emphasising that top leaders, starting with the politburo, must set an example. No one is untouchable. There is no ‘golden seal of immunity’, no ‘iron-hat prince’. That applies no less in the PLA, where buying positions and syphoning from budgets have been gargantuan.

Control of the army and the security services is essential to survival in dictatorships. Xi has put the loyalist Zhang Youxia in charge of the PLA. Zhang is an exception to retirement age limits. He must know that without Xi’s backing, he would be out. Moreover, he is surely not so foolish or reckless as to risk plotting, when he knows that the act of recruiting conspirators must leak if the coup is to be sufficiently broadly based as to have a chance of success.

In the CCP’s brutal world of claw and tooth, the idea that Xi is under house arrest or being allowed to continue while a successor is found is altogether too genteel. Xi has shown himself as ruthless as his predecessors (the ineffectual Hu Jintao excepted). Restrictions on top leaders meeting each other are tight (deliberately so) to prevent plotting. Paranoia is an essential requisite for the job, and Xi has moved fast and hard against any potential disloyalty.

The fall of a leader in the PRC is usually preceded by the arrest or taking down of close subordinates. Xi’s trusted lieutenants, particularly Cai Qi and Ding Xuexiang, remain in harness and in the news. Indeed, in the last few days, Xi himself has been restored to the front pages, and not just for his visit to Kazakhstan’s capital Astana. Leaders who fear a coup do not travel abroad.

So, barring ill health – Xi has inherited longevity genes and, like all CCP leaders, enjoys the special food and medical care reserved for top officials – he will be leading the PRC until 2032, and possibly thereafter from behind the arras. Even if he steps down from the presidency in 2027, which is possibly wise given the tiring schedule of travel it imposes, he will retain the two posts which are the true source of power in Beijing – party General Secretary, and chairman of the CMC.

That will not stop rumours. And if Xi does fall to a coup before 2032, the author will, of course, be the first to assert that he predicted it.

Charles Parton OBE is Chief Adviser to the China Observatory at the Council on Geostrategy.

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