In a few weeks, the Chinese Communist Party’s most senior officials will convene in the Great Hall of the People in central Beijing to put Xi Jinping on track to become leader for life — with power rivaling that of Mao Zedong.

Xi will likely emerge from the conclave with a third term, ensuring at least five more years in control.

But while Xi holds an unrivaled grip on the levers of state authority, the country he rules is paradoxically a lot more powerful — and more internally riven — than it was when he took office a decade ago.

Here are six things to know about Xi’s power grab at the mid-October 20th Party Congress — and the country’s complicated trajectory.

Beijing’s Communist black box

Party Congresses occur every five years and are exemplars of the CCP’s obsessive secrecy. The Chinese public’s awareness of the event is basically limited to its location and whatever hints the CCP opts to dole out via state media in the run-up to the event.

This year that includes the disclosure that the Party Congress will likely approve an unspecified amendment to the constitution. Note: it’s a constitution that Xi has already rewritten to allow for his unprecedented third term.

Beyond that, the specific agenda is a mystery. The proceedings aren’t open to the public and the results — including the approval of a work report that outlines the Party’s top priority policies for the next five years — often trickle out only weeks after the event.

Xi has limited his comments about the upcoming Congress to boilerplate propaganda points.

“The 20th CPC National Congress will offer a panoramic prospect of the two-stage strategic plan for China’s drive to build a great modern socialist country in all respects,” Xi told a study session of provincial and ministerial-level officials in Beijing in July.

But that pablum is a sign of confidence.

Xi’s trip to the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit in Uzbekistan — his first foray out of the country since the pandemic — is a decisive confirmation that he feels no threat from potential Party rivals. “[I]t shows a very high level of confidence that he’s got the [Chinese leadership] situation under control and that he will get his third term,”said Yun Sun, China program director at the Stimson Center.

He’s literally written his name into the history books.

The CCP telegraphed Xi’s third term with a Central Committee resolution in November that enshrined him as a pivotal figure critical to China’s growing wealth and power.

The Sixth Plenum’s history resolution placed Xion par with Mao and Deng Xiaoping,who masterminded China’s four decades of meteoric economic growth. The resolution lavished a good 20,000 words — out of a 27,000-word document — on Xi’s accomplishments since he took office in 2013.

But unlike Mao, whose authority was absolute while China was mired in poverty and roiled by hugely disruptive internal campaigns — including the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution — Xi has presided over an increasingly aggressive and expansive authoritarian one-party state powered by China’s four-decade economic boom.

President Joe Biden meets virtually with Chinese President Xi Jinping from the Roosevelt Room of the White House in Washington, Nov. 15, 2021.