After the conclusion this week of the 19th congress of the Chinese Communist Party, General Secretary Xi Jinping is no longer first among equals. Having consolidated power for five years, he has effectively bent the party to his wishes, ousting rivals, real and potential, elevating allies and ensuring that various institutions of the party and government serve only him. The unanimous decision to enshrine his name and ideology in the party's constitution has elevated him to a level unmatched by any Chinese leader since Mao Zedong. The world must now wonder what Xi will do with that power.
Since the death of Mao, the CCP has dispersed power in an attempt to guarantee that there would be no single individual with Mao's authority and control over all instruments of state power. A collective leadership would help prevent the abuses of Mao's era, while generating a more stable, predictable and institutionalized governing party. The result was an increasingly technocratic leadership that delivered growth but was unable to respond to sudden events and was marked by factions and rivalries.
Xi would have none of that. Since assuming China's highest office five years ago, he purged rivals and did his best to recentralize power in his hands. He used an anti-corruption campaign to tackle one of the country's — and the party's — most dangerous weaknesses, to present himself as a man of the people and to remove any competitors.