CHINA: After Xi.

Xi will have multiple ways to credential his successor, but as the story of Mao’s troubled succession suggests, no facet of his successor’s dossier will be more important than his ties to and rapport with the military. Outside observers tend to downplay the role of the PLA in Chinese politics. After all, the Chinese military has never seized political control, as have armed forces in autocracies such as Argentina and Pakistan. To many, this suggests that modern China has cultivated strong norms of civilian control—such that the party unquestionably “commands the gun,” as Mao famously put it.

But the absence of direct military rule belies the quiet power that the PLA wields in China. The reality is that the Chinese military exercises a form of coercive control, shaping interactions among decision-makers. The reason is simple: even though Chinese leaders don’t fear a direct challenge from the military, they constantly face that risk from civilian rivals. And in such struggles, the PLA acts as an implicit kingmaker as civilian leaders try to manipulate the levers of control over the military to ensure that they, and not their opponents, have the upper hand. When Deng needed to bolster the standing of his chosen successors, for instance, he appointed his close ally Admiral Liu Huaqing, the father of the Chinese navy, to the Politburo Standing Committee—an unusually high promotion for a military officer that has not since been replicated.

It is tempting to think that China is so fundamentally different today that the military’s latent role in succession is the artifact of a bygone era. In reality, the military remains pivotal in China’s elite politics, and control over it will remain a key asset for future political leaders.

Other unknowns: Will Xi hang on until death like Mao, or step down but quietly still run things unofficially like Deng? Completely stepping aside like Hu seems unlikely at best.