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Around this time last year (maybe June 2025), my dad started telling me about how Xi Jinping was actually losing power/influence and that the party elders were going to depose him. My dad told me that I should look into the Beidaihe meeting and then he says "mark my words, by this time next year Xi Jinping won't be in power". I did look into this Beidaihe thing and found it less impressive than what I've been told, I gave my dad the link, but essentially had a mental note on it since. Well it's been a year and Xi Jinping is still in power. I think Xi Jinping will dominate the 21st Congress (in 2027) as well. But who knows, maybe my dad is getting the vibes from somewhere and I am holding myself back from saying "heheheh, remember when...." in the miniscule chance that he is right and only off by 1 year.
Your thread reminds me of my dad.
I think there is a lot here to be convinced by, yet I am not sure the story has yet played out for us to come to a conclusion. History takes a long time. Democracy was tried in Athens and Rome, yet it slumbered for millennia before it was attempted again in the West with the US. Even more convincingly won wars, like let's say the American Civil War still has echoes way past the surrender (Jim Crow, Civil Rights, etc.).
I hope America wins, and I hope America wins convincingly, and the regime in Iran dies its deserved death. Yet there is a lot to fear as well, and all I see is the fog of war.
The consensus of people with a clue seems to be that even if Beidaihe was a thing once, it isn't a thing now. This is all silly mystified Orientalism. What elders, what factions, what Beidaihe. This isn't Wuxia. There's Xi and his Leninist Party apparatus. It's more boring and professional.
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