> Wouldn't that be the case with pretty much any totalitarian regime? No. There are plenty of totalitarian regimes where any actual wealth held outside of a t

> Wouldn't that be the case with pretty much any totalitarian regime? No. There are plenty of totalitarian regimes where any actual wealth held outside of a tiny ruling clique is considered unacceptable. China's trick is that they 1) embraced de facto capitalism and 2) managed to spread the wealth amongst a relatively large Party base (as a % of the population) while still maintaining insider control. That's a very, very fine balancing act, and most authoritarian regimes can't manage to do it, leading to either failure to sustain economic growth (e.g. Russia, or North Korea) or complete loss of control to new economic elites. In fact, Xi's anti-corruption campaign may potentially destabilize the Party because it breaks the implicit contract that has kept the Party together for the last 3 decades (namely, support the Party, and we'll look at the other way on corruption).