The  elevation  of Xi Jinping to effective dictatorship occurred in 2013, with his simultaneous occupation of three offices: general secretary (2012), president (2013), and chairman of the Central Military Commission (2012). In the following years, the relative opacity of China politics became even more completely opaque.

Beginning in 2025, open sources of uncertain provenance stated that Zhang Youxia had encircled Beijing with troops. It was suggested that Zhang had thus won a power struggle. His arrest by forces loyal to Xi Jinping illustrates the danger of apocryphal interpretations.

Nevertheless, since the troop concentrations, the weight of evidence has shifted further towards what some might call regime change, but is more accurately regime restoration. Like Putin, Xi is physically ill, with a slowly growing cerebral aneurysm, which may have been responsible for a mini-stroke, risking catastrophic rupture, as well as generalized cerebrovascular disease. This has resulted extremes of policy driven by Xi’s character, and sense of personal mortality:

• Unsound plans for military adventurism opposed by China’s military.
• Cult of personality.
• The attempt to replace consensus-based governance of the post-Mao years with concentrated personal power.

Favoring a coup:

• Those in the security forces who might place their bets with Xi are forced to appreciate that Xi may not have much life remaining as a high-functioning individual.
• Troops are arrayed with convenient lines of communication that cannot be disrupted.
• Xi has lost political support.
• Who strikes first, wins.

Conclusion. There is a decent probability that Xi will be deposed in the near term. This will occur with a minimum of disorder, as Xi is thought by many to have lost the mandate of heaven.