Bradley Perrett | Xi Jinping is a gift to rival countries and democracies the world over

We don't want to see him much stronger, but we also don't want internal opposition to deter him from the abrasive foreign and destructive domestic policies he has followed in 10 years in office.

The meeting will be the 20th party congress, opening on October 16. Among other things, it will determine which CCP bigwigs get which jobs for the next five years.

One expected decision will be to give Xi a third five-year term as leader of the party and therefore the country. As party leader, he's been called the general-secretary, though that may be upgraded with a revival of the "chairman" title from the Mao Zedong era. As national leader, he's called the president.

Extension of Xi's period in office has been more or less in the bag since 2018, when he had already become so powerful that he could get the former two-term limit removed. As is the way in authoritarian politics, Xi has used power to increase power, by sidelining, frightening or even imprisoning opponents.

Still, the CCP is not a solid block of people who all agree with each other.

Its senior members belong to various loose groups - not really clearly defined factions - and they accumulate followers and supporters. Also, they have honest disagreement about what's good for the country, such as how to adjust the balance of economic influence between markets and the state.

While ever more senior party people are now aligned with Xi, many are not. So leadership promotions and retirements coming out of the party congress will give us an idea of whether Xi has gained or lost influence.

Xi stands for aggressive foreign policy and strong state control of the economy. Both policies are good for countries that China sees as rivals, including us.

By pushing and shoving far too hard internationally, Xi has shaken the democracies out of decades of complacent wishful thinking that they could harmoniously get along with China.

He has provoked military build-ups in east Asia, Australia and the US. Because he has made his country's hostility so obvious, others, including Australia, have begun to disconnect themselves from China economically and technologically. Foreign opposition to the CCP's intensifying domestic oppression has grown, too.

By suppressing the vibrant private sector, he is harming China's development and therefore, over the long term, its political and military strength.

Altogether, he has been a disaster for China.

We don't want to see his power curtailed by party members who want to go back to the days of keeping China's head down internationally. If that happened, there would be only too many people in the democracies who would urge their governments to return to taking a soft line with China, to seize an imagined opportunity to fix relations.

And we don't want to see Xi forced to concede more influence to markets and free enterprise, as demanded by senior party members who loathe the state sector's inefficiency and care less than he does about its solid support for the party. Giving a freer rein to private enterprise would promote economic growth, which would make China stronger, especially in the long term.

My view would annoy the many China experts in Australia, especially in academia, who regret that Beijing's relations with the rest of the world have turned so bad since Xi took office in 2012 and who still hope for improvement.

Where I have differed from them is in believing that China has always been a rising threat and that ultimately it would never get along with the democracies. The only question was when we'd finally work that out.

Reasons for concern stared us in the face for decades.

We knew China was determined to take Taiwan and willing to use force to do so. With its mighty population, it had mighty economic and therefore military potential. It was frighteningly nationalistic, angrily nursing historical grudges.

Altogether, it was an authoritarian state with the mentality and prospective capability for seeking domination of at least its surrounding region.

How did people imagine that we would not sooner or later end up with Cold War II?

Thanks to Xi, we got it sooner. He moved far too early in asserting China's strength, whereas the country should have waited until it was too powerful to resist.

A Chinese saying perfectly expresses what he's done: da cao jing she, meaning "beat the grass and startle the snake" - warning it before striking it.

Good on him.

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Still, we have a reason to be wary of Xi becoming far more powerful than he already is. Wars are more likely to be started by exalted leaders who have no internal opposition and hear only advice they want to hear.

Vladimir Putin has helped by showing Xi and his advisers that wars can go badly wrong. It has been reassuring to hear CIA director William Burns saying that Putin's mess in Ukraine has unsettled Xi and the rest of the Chinese leadership and pushed back the likely timing of any move on Taiwan.

Nonetheless, we should worry if Xi gradually advances to the position of a despot whom no-one in China can resist.

Yet we also don't want him to go backwards. We want him to stay firmly in control, still keeping the democracies alert and still damaging China's economy. Wish him luck.