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Many China watchers maintain that Xi Jinping 习近平 has concentrated power in his own hands in a manner unprecedented since the death of Mao Zedong 毛泽东 and Deng Xiaoping 邓小平. Evidence of this includes Xi installing himself as the head of various central leading groups and commissions, his designation as “core leader,” his eponymous ideology inserted into the Party Constitution, his domination of the military, his prominent position in media coverage, the end of term limits that could apply to him and his massive anti-corruption drive.1 Other scholars argue, however, that rather than establishing “one-man rule,” Xi maintains a system of collective leadership based on factional power balancing, which has prevailed throughout the reform era.2 This article assesses whether Xi's purported consolidation of power is visible in factional politics by examining the strength of his faction in comparison with those of his two immediate predecessors, Jiang Zemin 江泽民 and Hu Jintao 胡锦涛.
For top Chinese leaders, informal connections with supporters are a source of power at least as important as their formal positions.3 Official positions are insufficient to guarantee power for top leaders, as witnessed with the downfall of three heads of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in the post-Mao era, Hua Guofeng 华国锋, Hu Yaobang 胡耀邦 and Zhao Ziyang 赵紫阳. Post-revolutionary leaders who lack charismatic authority need to rely on informal networks of followers. The introduction of a retirement age and term limits marked progress towards institutionalization.4 Yet the extent to which institutionalization trumps informal power appears limited, as was made clear by Xi's 2018 abolition of a term limit for his own position.5 The rules for appointing personnel remain obscure, especially at higher levels, and this under-institutionalization of personnel appointments gives top Chinese leaders many opportunities to promote clients. Thus, Lucian Pye's 40-year-old observation that “personal appointments are pure power questions, and as such they represent the final outcome of all factional conflicts” is still valid, at least for high-level positions.6
We investigate Xi's power by examining the strength of his faction in comparison to those of his two immediate predecessors, Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao. The incumbent head of the CCP has the influence to place supporters in high-ranked positions and promote them to even higher...