Under President Xi Jinping's decade-long reign, China has become a more autocratic, secretive, and repressed nation and experts expect that trend to continue as Xi embarks on a historic third term as leader of the Chinese Communist Party.

Xi completely abandoned the leadership transition plan – which involved selecting a new leader every 10 years via a consensus-building process – that was outlined in China's 1982 Constitution after he changed the two-term limit on the presidency in a 2018 amendment.