As China marks the 60th anniversary of the Cultural Revolution this year, a Stanford University scholar who once worked inside China's Communist Party apparatus is drawing a direct line between the political trauma of that era and the authoritarian consolidation underway today — while arguing that the pendulum will likely swing back once Xi Jinping leaves the stage.
Wu Guoguang, a senior research scholar at Stanford's Center on China's Economy and Institutions, delivered a lecture in Taipei on June 27 at an event organized by the Fair Winds Foundation, drawing an audience of more than a hundred academics, policy professionals, and journalists. Wu, who studied at Peking University alongside former Premier Li Keqiang and later served in senior CCP institutions and state media before leaving China, offered a sweeping historical framework for understanding where Chinese politics has been — and where it may be heading.
The CCP's Recurring Cycle From Oligarchy to One-Man Rule
Wu framed his analysis through a structural lens borrowed from Aristotle, distinguishing between oligarchy — rule shared among a small elite — and tyranny, meaning unchecked personal dictatorship. Looking across the CCP's history, he argued, a recurring pattern emerges: the party tends to oscillate between these two modes, with oligarchy gradually giving way to personal rule, before the cycle resets.
The Cultural Revolution, in Wu's reading, represents the apex of personal dictatorship under Mao Zedong. But even Mao, he noted, operated within a system where other party elders retained some share of power before the revolution swept that away. Wu described Mao as a "ruffian with literary sensibilities" — a man of culture, however brutal, whose intellectual character shaped his political style. Xi Jinping, Wu suggested, does not appear to share that dimension.
After Mao's death, the party briefly attempted another form of personal rule under Hua Guofeng, but Hua lacked the authority to sustain it. What emerged instead was a collective leadership structure involving Hua Guofeng, Ye Jianying, Deng Xiaoping, Chen Yun, Li Xiannian, Hu Yaobang, and Zhao Ziyang — a genuine oligarchy, however unstable.
Tiananmen Was the Turning Point Toward One-Man Rule
Wu identified the June 4, 1989 crackdown as the pivotal moment in the CCP's modern drift toward personal dictatorship. Deng Xiaoping made the decision to use force against protesters unilaterally, without consulting other senior leaders. Party elders including Chen Yun were reportedly furious — but ultimately acquiesced for the sake of collective party survival. Deng subsequently made clear where power resided, leaving behind the now-famous declaration: "As long as I am alive, what I say goes."
The Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao era that followed represented what Wu called a return to oligarchy — a diffuse system the Chinese public sometimes mockingly described as "nine dragons managing the waters," meaning power was fragmented across competing factions. It was messy, Wu acknowledged, but it was collective.
Xi's consolidation reversed that trajectory decisively, concentrating power to a degree not seen since Mao.
What Comes After Xi
The question Wu's Taipei audience pressed him on most directly was succession — who comes after Xi, and what kind of system emerges. Wu's answer was cautious but pointed. If Xi were to step down or die in office, he assessed the probability of the CCP returning to some form of collective oligarchic rule as high. The structural logic that produced collective leadership after Mao, and again after Deng, would likely reassert itself.
Whether that collective leadership would be stable, reform-minded, or merely a transitional phase before another strongman consolidates power is a question Wu left deliberately open. What he was more confident about is that the factors shaping the post-Xi landscape — economic and technological development, the degree of social pluralism that survives Xi's rule, and external pressures from the international environment — will determine which direction the cycle turns next.
Former Premier Jiang Yi-huah, who chairs the Fair Winds Foundation and previously served as Taiwan's Executive Yuan head, joined academics and journalists in questioning Wu at the event. National Taiwan University political science professor Chang Deng-ji served as a discussant alongside Wu during the lecture.
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