[Originally a Twitter thread.]

I belatedly read Neil Thomas’s piece on succession politics, and it’s excellent - highly recommend for anyone interested in what happens after Xi leaves the scene. Two quick thoughts occurred to me while reading:

Scrapping the Premier’s annual press conference reinforces Neil’s point about Xi’s reluctance to do anything that provides even the appearance of a hint about who might be first among equals among his lieutenants.

I strongly agree that the Director of the Central Committee General Office would play a crucial role. It is impossible to appraise Cai Qi’s personal ambitions and relations with other top leaders from the outside, and these would be critical variables in a succession scenario. But simply from the perspective of organizational and bureaucratic power, leading the General Office provides enormous capacity to shape the outcome, especially in a scenario in which Xi was unexpectedly and suddenly incapacitated.

Even if Cai, or a future person with the same combination of roles, had no interest in vying for power and wanted to be some sort of neutral arbiter, I think it would be difficult to avoid becoming embroiled in the fight for power. This is because few rules would govern the succession process, giving (or burdening) the General Office with substantial leeway to interpret procedures, and because the players would have many incentives to access and influence the General Office’s information about leaders and its inner workings.