ABSTRACT
The method to study the Chinese Communist Party is to uncover interlinks between power authority and legitimacy in China. With each generation of leadership, these interlinks acquire new meanings and this happens through expressions of national interests and aspirations. This chapter is an exercise to understand the details of this question and the party’s search for answers to these. It tries to do this through a study of the origins, the strengths and weaknesses of the Xi Jinping thought, and does a bit of crystal gazing into the future of the party. The future can be imagined through a study of changing notions of legitimacy by looking at two questions: first, what happens to the party’s relations with the people in the post-ideological era? and second, how the changing contours of accountability and of the rule according to law impact the issue at hand? How the party handles the paradox of the stronger China also becoming more uncertain and insecure is what would matter in the end. This question is explored in this chapter by undertaking discussion on issues of anti-corruption, next-generation leadership and the question of lifelong appointments, among others.
