All Hail Emperor Winnie (Ignore The Burning Hundred-Acre Wood, Pleb)

To no one's surprise, Xi Jinping emerged from the annual National Congress at the head of the Party for a third term.

Everyone knows now that Xi's aim to become a second Mao, and thus be a true Neo-Emperor of China, is all but achieved at this time. While this may be alarming to some, it is going to be necessary for Xi to deal with the imminent threats to the Han nation, to the Chinese state, and to the Party- and this is clear to anyone with so much as a cursory comprehension of the Chinese--Han--tradition of statecraft.

Xi Jinping seizes nigh-total power at a time when the Chinese state faces several natural crisis born of Party--and therefore state--incompetence.

• China's freshwater supply is in a state of near-collapse as well as unfixably polluted due to industrial policies long in place. This in turn made China dependent upon fertilizer for its meager and small amount of arable land, which meant dependence upon Ukraine and Russia for potash and fertilizer. Whoops.
• China imports most of its food from abroad, as its incompetence routinely ruins its own capacity to generate its own food supplies as well as wasting what it stores for emergency use due to such incompetence and corruption. (See its pig culls due to preventable disease and grain wastage due to poor storage policies and capacity.)
• China cannot keep the lights on due to so much need for hydroelectric power, power decimated by the very same droughts wrecking its farmlands and making them vulnerable to the flooding that washes what good soil China has away. This in turn means more coal-fired plants coming online, but not fast enough or run well enough to fill the gap as well as promoting dependency on foreign coal such as from Australia.
• China prioritizes high-status industries such as Electric Vehicles over guaranteeing its populations basic needs; Tesla gets power before homes in the cities. This has not gone unnoticed.
• The real estate corruption via a nationwide Ponzi scheme--Evergrade and company--has tipped into collapse and now various tiers of government are intervening directly to keep the plates from crashing. Meanwhile, people aren't being housed in apartments that they paid for because work isn't being done.
• The factional infighting has taking priority over political economic policy, such that nonsensical moves like Zero COVID continues despite it driving foreign talent and capital out of the country in a frightening exodus- making a shaking economy into a fragile one. (This policy, by the way, is directed at Xi's CCP enemies in Shanghai and the provinces as a way of flexing on them and centralizing power in Beijing.)
• Earlier this year, Chinese nationals are banned from leaving the country unless the Party (via the state) explicitly permits it; no discretionary travel allowed. Passports are cut up by agents at the airports, and they are also cutting up foreign-issued residency cards (which is a problem because those are property of the issuing foreign state, not the holder- a diplomatic incident waiting to happen). This has not been lifted.
• The anti-Taiwan Rhetoric has escalated while Russia's war with Ukraine has kept a lot of Western eyes fixed elsewhere. Leaders have moved to negate any possible advantage for such a move, such as control over Taiwan's chip manufacturing (which is superior to the Mainland by a country mile), and the PLA as well as the PLA Navy remains a less than credible opponent for a Western counter-attack (because if you believe that the CCP has working hypersonic missiles, let alone in the numbers needed, I have a bridge to sell you). They may do it, despite the price, if it relieves internal pressures on Xi regardless of the outcomes.
• The demographic crisis is going to force the CCP to even more draconian measures to reverse that trend and quickly, none of which will sit well with outsiders or look good in foreign media, but Xi doesn't care about them. All he cares about is internal politics and his hold on power. All else can be, and will be, thrown into the furnace to power that ambition. This is the reality of Chinese statecraft.

We are not looking at a strong, confident China that will surpass the West. We are looking at a weak, fragile China that's one wrong step from falling into its own footprint at a speed that makes 9/11 look slow. If it were not for the weak, stupid, and feckless Thralls of Empire in Western governments that freefall would be happening right now followed by that favorite of Western Molech cultists, "the humanitarian intervention" that involves occupying key locations and making certain that what is needed to keep the looting (and the grift) going gets put into place to do just that.

What we shall see over the next five years is if Xi Jinping is ready to be more than a new Mao, but a new Qin Shi Huang Di. That is what it will take to survive what is to come, hold on to power, keep the Chinese state able to function, safeguard the Party through this mess, and when it's over the butcher's bill make Le Holocaust look like a schoolyard brawl (as is often the case in China).

But that's the best case scenario, and that best case still leaves the world with an exhausted China that is unable to exert power abroad and likely suffering the full effects of that very demographic collapse. China's neo-Imperial ambitions are DONE.

That just leaves Globohomo and Russia. Empire doesn't care which party wins, so long as it has a viable host to dwell within. Ensuring that all possible hosts collapse is how Mankind gains the opportunity to end Empire forever, and if it does Empire falls.