[Xi] used the meeting, broadcast live on Chinese television, to stress that only the party’s dominance would allow China to continue its stunning transformation into the decades ahead. The first lesson from 40 years of reform, he said, was the need to maintain party leadership “over all tasks.”
“It was precisely because we’ve adhered to the centralized and united leadership of the party that we were able to achieve this great historic transition,” Mr. Xi said. ...
Mr. Xi’s political power is as great as that of any leader in decades, yet his party’s tightening of controls over the economy and ever more aspects of society suggest a deep-seated insecurity at the highest levels.
Xi wants the power to control "all tasks" in China because China's rulers sees a full spectrum of threats to Chinese Communist Party supremacy that goes from America's hard and soft power all the way to individuals in China who don't toe the line on all aspects of Chinese party demands.
As this writer concludes after noting that Xi rejected reforms to placate the world's resentment of China tilting the international trading system to their side by hook or crook:
Reform and opening, Xi made clear, will mean only what the party needs it to mean. Chinese stock markets plummeted even as the president spoke. But beneath its bravado, the speech underscored the deeper reality that Xi and the country he leads are trapped between conflicting and unforgiving demands. When forced to choose between bad options, the [Communist Party of China] will pick the one that poses the least risk to its power.
Heck, even true believer communists are a threat.
The Chinese ruling class seriously view the inability to control everything to be a threat. And it isn't just the collapse of the USSR that scares them. They fear the French Revolution, too. Who knows what spark could set that kind of circular firing squad in China?
Why everyone but a few rogue tyrants don't soil their pants contemplating China dominating the planet rather than America is beyond my comprehension. You don't even need precious nuance to grasp how bad that shift would be.
