When a little over a week from now Xi Jinping gets the nod for an unprecedented third term as party boss, he expects no internal opposition — but how long can his one-man rule last? 

Mr. Xi’s Zero-Covid policies, including long periods of home incarceration for millions of people, are widely unpopular. He may hazard a move to annex Free China shortly after his inauguration, following the party congress that starts on October 16. The country’s economy is slowing, and the future looks even bleaker as Beijing mows down entrepreneurs like Alibaba’s founder Jack Ma. 

Yet, such potential drawbacks are dwarfed by the general secretary’s political advantage: Since the “anti-corruption” campaign in his early days at the helm, Mr. Xi acted as a modern-day Lenin, purging all potential opponents and installing loyalists in top positions of power. 

As a child, the future Beijing autocrat witnessed the downfall of his father, Xi Zhongxun. A comrade of Mao during the Communist revolution, he climbed up the party ranks until the Cultural Revolution. At that time, Xi père was unceremoniously demoted, shamed, and incarcerated for long periods on trumped-up charges — only to eventually be cleared of all wrongdoing.

While that episode’s influence over young Mr. Xi is unknown, it must have been etched in his memory and guided  his own climb up the party’s greasy pole. Originally a member of Jiang Zemin’s Shanghai Gang, once Mr. Xi was inaugurated as party boss in 2012 he carefully cultivated his own faction.

That inner circle of Xi loyalists now controls most of Beijing’s power levers and holds top government positions around the country. In the past, Mr. Jiang’s “Shanghai Gang” and its rival, Hu Jintao’s “Youth League,” formed an internal Communist party balance of power. No longer. Mr. Xi has eliminated any competition for ideas and ended power-sharing. All politburo members now are his loyalists, as are governors of the country’s provinces. 

Having secured his position, Mr. Xi went on to scrap a rule that was enacted by Deng Xiaoping in the aftermath of Chairman Mao’s disastrous tenure. Meant to eliminate long entrenchment in power, Deng ruled that a party leader, who is also the military’s supreme commander, could serve a maximum of two five-years terms. 

As the party convenes for its 20th national congress, Mr. Xi will be crowned for a third term that, if all goes his way, could be further extended and make him ruler for life — that is, of course, unless the country’s growing structural problems eventually bring him down. 

Start with the increasingly unpopular Zero-Covid policy, dictating shutdowns of entire cities for long periods of time. It may have started as a way to quash opponents at Shanghai, where much of China’s industry and business is located, and where Mr. Jian’s political group challenged Mr. Xi’s intention to seek a third term. 

As the pandemic spread, Mr. Xi insisted on relying on China’s own, ineffective Covid vaccines. Under his Zero-Covid policy city dwellers in infected areas are confined to their homes and forced to rely on sporadic government deliveries of food and other necessities. Violators who venture out to the streets are beat up or worse. 

Video clips on the country’s tightly-monitored social media outlet, Weibo, now show people under Zero-Covid restrictions chanting “lift the lockdowns,” and “police are hitting the people.”

Meanwhile the economy, once boasting high expansion rates, is down to 4 percent annual growth this year, from 8 percent in 2021. Although few economists fully believe Beijing’s statistics, the trend is clearly downward. The real estate market’s collapse is another source of unrest, as buyers of apartments that were never delivered by contractors are rebelling. 

The fear in Taiwan is that Mr. Xi would attempt to change the subject from internal woes by assaulting the free island.

Taipei is adding 14 percent to the country’s military budget. By the end of the year mandatory military conscription of men is likely to be extended to a year or two from the current four months. A semiconductor tycoon, Robert Tsao of United Microelectronics Corporation, has just donated $33 million to finance military training for the population. 

Mr. Xi has long maintained that “reunification” — Beijing’s euphemism for annexing Taiwan — cannot await the next generation of leaders. Completing that task was one of the arguments he made for extending his rule beyond a second term.

Once Mr. Xi secures a third term mid-October, his power “will gradually expand, along with the continuous emphasis on promoting the reunification process,” Taiwan’s head of the mainland affairs council, Chiu Tai-san, told Taipei’s lawmakers yesterday. 

Yet, like Chinese emperors throughout history, Mr. Xi is widely aware of the potential for rebellion. A whole generation of relatively young politicians, now in their 50s and 60s, have been shoved aside by Mr. Xi and are looking for a way back in. 

Entrepreneurs that have been stripped of their riches may also resist. Pushing them aside is one source of the country’s woes. The country’s current downturn could prove hazardous for a man aspiring to be emperor for life.