What a Power Struggle in Beijing Might Look Like

On Oct. 1, 2019, exactly 70 years since Mao Zedong stood in triumph at the gates of the Forbidden City and declared the creation of the People's Republic of China, Chinese President Xi Jinping was doing his best imitation of the great helmsman. Dressed in a black tunic identical to the one worn by Mao in his famous portrait at Tiananmen Gate, Xi echoed Mao's boasts that only the Communist Party of China is capable of protecting China from foreign exploitation. Xi, like Mao, then inspected the People's Liberation Army – though, this time, instead of American tanks captured by Mao's forces from the nationalists in 1949, Xi reviewed an extravagant parade of new indigenous weapons systems, including new hypersonic missiles and intercontinental ballistic missiles meant to keep the U.S. at bay.