Xi Jinping is a symptom of a larger problem: an ossified political system with weak checks and balances, and a ruling party that has never fully owned up to its past mistakes and has no appetite for the reforms necessary to stabilize the system for the long term. Xi had little trouble dismantling the institutional checks and balances that Deng Xiaoping implemented to try and prevent another overzealous strongman from rising to power. Since Xi took over, the modest space for political pluralism that existed in the twilight of the Hu-Wen era has competely vanished, not just in the party-state, but in broader society. Circa 2010 you could read a solid investigative feature (provided it did not probe too high up) in a publication like Caixin and/or an editorial calling for less state intervention in the economy. Much less likely today. Foreign businesspeople need to understand that politics rules in Xi's China; it's paramount. Xi is not a technocrat like Hu Jintao or Jiang Zemin. He's an ideologue whose worldview fuses Marxist-Leninist-Stalinist-Maoist concepts with deep-seated ethnocentrism and an imperious style given his red bloodline. As long as Xi stays in power, China will become ever more repressive and will intensify "struggle" with its adversaries overseas, chiefly the United States, but also countries which ally with Washington, which will harm China's business environment because it foments uncertainty.