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Notes -
CCP has famously opaque structure, so it was not necessarily even about Xi "voluntarily stepping down" but maybe being forced by some players to share some power or tolerate some ideas he opposes. The power struggles inside Zhongnanhai would probably fill whole spy libraries, it is insane what is going on in there. If you follow China watchers you will see lengthy analysis of things like what can be the meaning if Xi having two cups of tea in front of him when everybody else has just one. So even if to the outsiders some things like order of seats or looks of congress members may seem innocuous, it is the only signal available given that things like "voting" are well known sham.
Also it has to be said that Xi is only seventh leader of CCP after Mao Zedong and since the reign of Deng Xiaoping the CCP established the system of collective leadership exactly to prevent one dictator to amass power similar to Mao. So in fact it happened in the past that even leaders with total political authority capable of implementing superauthoritarian ideas like one child policy were sharing the power and they were willing to hand the power over to the next chairman. In exchange they had certain level of safety, respect and comfort after they transfered the power. The result of this congress shows that collective leadership is a thing of the past.
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