Xi’s Health, China’s Systemic Risk @Lingling_Wei latest reporting on Xi Jinping’s health reminds me of something I was told in Beijing many years ago. Before Xi Jinping and Li Keqiang took over at the top in 2012–13, I was told there had been a Politburo-level discussion about the health of the two incoming leaders. Both apparently suffered from the so-called 三高—high blood pressure, high blood sugar and high cholesterol. The concern was straightforward: was it wise for China’s two most senior leaders to enter office with long-term health risks? One of them, Li Keqiang, has since died suddenly at the age of 68. Now Lingling Wei reports that Xi’s team built extraordinary amounts of rest into his Washington schedule—dropping a working lunch with Trump, leaving roughly five hours of downtime and even requesting a private room inside the West Wing where Xi could rest. During my years in Beijing, we used to laugh at the extraordinary lengths the system supposedly went to keep senior leaders’ health a state secret. We were told they travelled with their own toilets and that even their shit was packed up and taken away, lest their DNA or clues about their health would be leaked. Perhaps this is not entirely unusual for national leaders. But to us, the extreme secrecy felt like another manifestation of the familiar paranoia surrounding China’s top leadership. Yet the politics behind it are serious. In a system where so much power is monopolized by one man, the physical condition of that man is no longer merely a personal matter. It becomes a matter of consequence for the entire country. And Xi has made the problem far more dangerous. I have repeatedly argued that one of the lasting consequences of his ruthless purges will be what happens the day after Xi. He has destroyed rivals, broken political networks, overturned succession conventions and concentrated power around himself without naming a successor. More importantly, that ruthlessness has changed the rules of the power game. When that day comes, there may be very little room for compromise. For those competing to succeed him, losing could mean losing everything—not only your own position and freedom, but seeing your family, protégés and political associates investigated, prosecuted and punished alongside you. Defeat would not be personal. It could mean the destruction of your entire network. That changes the nature of succession from political competition into an all-or-nothing struggle for survival. Xi’s health, therefore, isn’t merely a medical story. It is a succession story—and potentially a story about the stability of the entire political system.