Xi Jinping has secured near-total control of China’s Communist Party, but experts warn that his unchecked power poses a huge risk, as a debt-ridden economy and US rivalry also pose major challenges.

His reappointment as party leader is a turning point in China’s modern history, which is tilting decisively back toward one-man rule after decades of power-sharing among the elite.

Xi was reconfirmed as party general secretary and military chief on Sunday at the conclusion of a twice-decade party congress in Beijing, sealing a third term at the helm of the world’s second-biggest economy.

Party loyalists also approved a sweeping reshuffle that staffed the top governing body — the seven-member Politburo Standing Committee — with Xi’s allies.

The outcome ended 10 years in which Xi gained more power than any Chinese leader since Mao Zedong, breaking with the example of his two predecessors, who smoothly handed over their authority to those next in line.

It has also sparked warnings that Xi’s increasingly unchecked power could trigger a succession crisis when his rule finally ends.

“Today’s reappointment of (Xi) is the result of his concentration of extreme individual power,” said a senior Chinese political scientist, who requested anonymity to avoid possible repercussions from the authorities.

The move was “disastrously negative for the Chinese state,” damaging the party’s resilience and heralding “decline and stagnation,” the scholar said, adding that it was “inevitable” that Xi would now seek to rule for life .

It’s the economy that Xi is likely to focus on immediately as he begins his third history-making term.

In recent years he has championed the development of a more consumer-oriented economy – a policy known as “dual circulation” – and has sought to tackle China’s yawning wealth gap under the banner of “shared prosperity”.

However, its signature zero-Covid strategy, with its quick lockdowns, mass testing and restrictions on movement, has shaken consumer sentiment and hurt growth.

“Consumption is unlikely to recover to pre-Covid levels with the current level of Covid control,” said Dan Wang, chief economist at Hang Seng Bank China.

She said the policy has “added to the woes” in the real estate sector, where a debt crisis has triggered defaults by developers and planted fears of a looming financial crisis for local governments.

“The government will have to choose a new model to develop the housing sector while maintaining the debt relief requirement,” Wang said.

China this week delayed the release of its third-quarter economic growth numbers as the country is expected to be on track for its weakest performance since the pandemic began in 2020.

The country only grew 0.4 percent in the second quarter, and analysts widely expect it to fall well short of its annual growth target of 5.5 percent.

Other problems on Xi’s horizon include China’s relations with the West, which have collapsed as Beijing violently repressed huge pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong and adopted an aggressive stance on Taiwan.

Xi himself has repeatedly said that global geopolitics “is undergoing changes unseen in a century,” peppering his opening speech to Congress with references to “security.”

He also reiterated that China would never give up the opportunity to use force to rule Taiwan, a thriving island democracy that considers Taiwan part of its own territory, and the US has vowed to help defend it.

Xi’s Communist Party has even enshrined its opposition to Taiwan independence in its constitution, according to a resolution released on Saturday.

Shi Yinhong, a professor of international relations at Renmin University of China, said Xi “keeps integrating unification across the straits (Taiwan) into his cause for Chinese national greatness.”

The focus on national security in the military, economic and ideological spheres “reflects the fact, as most observers around the world judge, that there is no evidence of a major and lasting weakening of relations with the US and its maritime allies.. . in the foreseeable future,” he told AFP.

While Xi’s reappointment is unlikely to increase the risk of a war over Taiwan, “it could be a step in a chain of events that will ultimately increase the risk of armed conflict,” said Shanghai-based political risk analyst Dan Macklin.

Beijing could step up its plans for reunification if slower economic growth through the mid-2020s prompts the party to expand other sources of legitimacy, he told AFP.

But Xi’s advancing age combined with a top leadership peppered with personal allies could “increase the risk of miscalculation” — and “give Xi an extreme level of control and greater ability to take bold moves against Taiwan,” he said Macklin.

Jeffrey Wasserstrom, a leading scholar of modern Chinese history at the University of California, Irvine, said Xi’s unassailable position at the top of the party raises concerns about “people’s willingness to speak out on things that deviate from the official line.” .