What Will a Post-Xi China Look Like?

What will happen to China’s long-term ideological direction once President Xi Jinping eventually leaves the scene? This is unlikely anytime soon. But for a septuagenarian, the possibility is real enough to force us to start seriously thinking this through. Indeed, it goes to the core question of whether the deep structural and cultural changes that Xi has wrought will endure under the next generation of Chinese leaders. Could his particular brand of “Marxist nationalism”—marked by left turns in politics and economics, while moving foreign policy to the nationalist right—become more extreme as a younger generation of Xi political loyalists carry his banner forward? Or will “Xi Jinping Thought” fade, gradually at first, as happened with Maoism between 1976 and 1978, before it was finally repudiated by Deng Xiaoping and his successors?

Post-Xi China will be shaped by a number of factors, the most important of which will be timing. Xi will want to stay in office until he is confident that the generation to succeed him in the party’s most senior leadership positions will share his ideological direction and zeal. This presents a problem. Xi constantly rails against his own generation and the one immediately below him for having allowed corruption, careerism, and ideological confusion to reign supreme. That’s why his party rectification campaigns have been designed to instill personal and political fear and rigor.

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