November 1, 2021 The Third Road: Where Will Xi Jinping Go in 2022? madeinchinajournal.com/2021/11/01/the-third-road-where-will-xi-jinping-go-in-2022 Written on 1 November 2021. Posted in Article, Online Only, Op-eds. Author: Ling Li Earlier this year, two veteran analysts of Chinese politics, Richard McGregor and Jude Blanchette (2021), published a comprehensive report, laying out four possible scenarios for the next leadership succession in China’s new era. In two of these scenarios, Xi Jinping is out of the picture as the result of either a coup or ‘unexpected death or incapacitation’. In the other two, he stays in power either by extending his tenure as the General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to a third term or by retiring from that office but continuing to rule behind the scenes. Below I outline a third path Xi could take to stay in power: reactivating the office of the Chairman of the Party Central Committee (hereinafter Party Chairman) at the twentieth CCP Congress in 2022. The reasons for taking this path are threefold. First, the office would not be new, created from scratch, but would be based on precedent. This would not only help to build legitimacy but also draw a roadmap of how to get there. Second, the office would The Third Road: Where Will Xi Jinping Go in 2022? - Made in China Jo... moz-extension://6d3cb681-9d38-4bed-9e51-dc81638ce504/algo.html 1 of 6 01-Nov-21, 1:46 PM