It will be interesting to see what effect Xi's increasing consolidation and even amplification of power has on China's, particularly the Party's, stability in c

It will be interesting to see what effect Xi's increasing consolidation and even amplification of power has on China's, particularly the Party's, stability in coming years. To apply an old maxim from Nathan Rothschild, "It requires a great deal of boldness and a great deal of caution to make a great fortune; and when you have got it, it requires ten times as much wit to keep it." Xi has clearly been successful in following an ambitious plan to promote himself, but in doing so he has created a position that will become even more attractive to other ambitious and talented members of the Party. When the reward increases, the amount of acceptable risk to earn that reward and the demand for that risk do as well. Some dictators are brilliant and paranoid enough, and command enough loyalty (and/or fear), to maintain their newfound power, but not all, and it indeed requires much more effort than acquiring it. Once the exercise of these new powers becomes somewhat expected, and the holding of them by one man becomes familiar, then those on the next rungs of the ladder will start imagining what China could become if another, better man held them. We will really see who Xi is in how he responds to those ambitions.