Xi Jinping will likely emerge from the conclave with a third term, ensuring at least five more years in control.
Ng Han Guan/AP Photo

What comes next?

But Xi has other cards still to play. He will likely quell potential dissent within CCP’s ranks by replacing some or all of the 11 Politburo members above the unofficial retirement age of 68 — including China’s senior diplomat, Yang Jiechi, Foreign Minister Wang Yi and Vice Premier Liu He — with trusted acolytes.

“In his third term, he will have more of his proteges, meaning the people he promoted to the top leadership, so that will make him more powerful,” said Cheng Li, director of the John L. Thornton China Center at the Brookings Institution.

Senior CCP officials may require Xi to make a symbolic sacrifice of one of his titles or publicly anoint a successor as the price of another term.

But the absence of a clear successor waiting in the wings should ring alarm bells in foreign capitals. “If we don’t get any clues, and if there’s no one that looks like they’re going to have that function, that’s kind of weird,” said Kerry Brown, director of the Lau China Institute at King’s College, London.

“What happens if Xi is incapacitated or drops dead? For a risk averse entity, the Party is putting all his eggs in one basket and that’s pretty risky.”