Xi says: who will succeed him?

Summary

Economist Podcasts: "Xi says: who will succeed him?"

The Intelligence from The Economist
Date: April 3, 2026
Hosts: Jason Palmer & Rosie Blore
Featured Guests: James Miles (Global China Writer), Guy Scriven (Global Business Writer), John Fasman (Senior Culture Correspondent)

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Episode Overview

This episode explores three distinct segments:

1. The ongoing political reshuffle in China and the implications for post-Xi Jinping leadership.
2. Europe’s position in the global tech race, and whether it is finally catching up to the US and China.
3. A tribute to renowned French oenologist Michel Rolland, reflecting on his influential legacy in the world of wine.

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Segment 1: China’s Leadership Shuffle & the Xi Succession Question

[02:09–10:48]

Main Theme:
The Chinese Communist Party is undergoing its routine five-year reshuffle, but unlike previous years, Xi Jinping's hold on power appears unshakeable, and the question of succession has become more uncertain than ever.

Key Discussion Points:

• Xi’s Disruption of Succession Norms

  • Xi abolished presidential term limits in 2018, removing established safeguards for leadership transition.

    “Xi Jinping ripped up the succession rules in 2018 when he revised them to allow himself to be president for life.”
    — James Miles (03:16)

  • No indication Xi is preparing a successor for 2032.

• How the Reshuffle Works

  • Up to hundreds of thousands of administrative posts are rotated, culminating in the 21st Party Congress.
  • Elections start at the village level, but these are noncompetitive and foregone; local Communist Party bosses prevail by design.

    “That’s a process that actually involves people casting a vote, but of course it's a sham.”
    — James Miles (03:57)

  • Xi has packed the Politburo with loyalists—“yes men”—leaving no room for alternative power bases.

• Absence of Grooming Young Successors

  • Traditionally, elevation to the Central Military Commission would herald the grooming of a successor, but Xi remains the lone civilian there.

    “A key indication of succession arrangements being made would be the placing into the Central Military Commission... that hasn't happened yet and is highly unlikely... before the next Congress in 2032.”
    — James Miles (06:43)

  • The Central Committee and regional bodies are also aging, creating a “new kind of gerontocracy.”

• Risks and Tensions in the System

  • Xi’s refusal to groom a successor avoids internal competition but risks elite infighting post-Xi.

    “You’re kind of damned if you do and damned if you don’t in China. Appoint a successor and things start getting tense... Don’t appoint a successor and the chance then of huge fighting once the leader has left... is enormous.”
    — James Miles (08:43)

  • Recent purges (about one-fifth of the Central Committee and about half of the Army’s top leaders) have contributed to enormous elite stress and uncertainty about the post-Xi future.

• Notable Quote:

  “The possibility for more unexpected things to happen in Chinese politics over the next five years is really quite considerable.”
  — James Miles (10:43)

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Segment 2: Is Europe Closing the Tech Gap?

[12:39–20:44]

Main Theme:
Europe has traditionally lagged behind America and China in creating global tech giants. Recent shifts—including policy missteps elsewhere and homegrown ecosystem growth—are changing the outlook.

Key Discussion Points:

• Historic Tech Gap

  • Of the world’s top 100 tech firms: only six are European, compared with 56 American and 16 Chinese.

    “Europe is a laggard when it comes to creating tech giants.”
    — Guy Scriven (12:59)

• Barriers to European Tech Dominance

  • Fragmented markets—multiple languages, cultures, and legal systems—make scaling difficult.
  • Shallow capital markets limit rapid growth.

• What’s Changing?

  • External:
    • Policy missteps in the US (erosion of trust post-Trump) and China (overbearing state subsidies deterring private capital) are driving European firms and attracting global capital and talent.

    “The brain drain seems to have started to reverse itself... It's become easier to hire top American talent into Europe.”
    — Guy Scriven (14:43)

    • China’s heavy-handedness is driving venture capital away.
  • Internal:
    • Successful European founders (e.g., Spotify, Klarna, Revolut) reinvest as “angels,” spinning off new firms.

    “Former employees of Klarna have created something like 60 different startups... It gives people a hope that Europe could grasp this opportunity.”
    — Guy Scriven (16:40)

• Bright Spots & Opportunities

  • Europe is unlikely to catch up in headline areas (AI, for example, produced just 2 of the top 100 “frontier” models in 2025).
  • Strong developments in:
    • Climate tech: Venture investment rising—now half the US level.
    • Defense tech: Boost from surging defense budgets, emergence of drone and AI systems firms.
    • Deep tech: High scientific risk areas (fusion energy, quantum computing, etc.), with EU companies making substantive progress.

    “Deep tech... is a kind of business where the majority of the risk is scientific rather than in the business model.”
    — Guy Scriven (18:57)

• Memorable Moment:

  “There's plenty of investors I spoke to who've been investing in European tech for decades and they say that every few years there's a new European horizon in tech, so everything could fall apart.”
  — Guy Scriven (20:14)

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Segment 3: Obituary — Michel Rolland, Master of Modern Wine

[20:56–26:08]

Main Theme:
A reflection on the life and transformative career of Michel Rolland, the globe-trotting French oenologist who modernized wine-making and courted both success and controversy.

Key Insights & Storylines:

• Humble Beginnings, Lasting Impact

  • Michel Roland was born into Bordeaux vineyards and spent childhood harvests on the family tractor.

    “There was no question of doing anything else, he once said.”
    — John Fasman (20:56)

  • Left family vineyards to study enology, later helping revive Bordeaux during the hard times of the 1970s and 80s.

• Techniques and Influence

  • Advocated for scientific advancements—harvesting grapes at full ripeness, emphasizing fieldwork over romantic ideas of terroir.
  • Became a sought-after consultant, notably in California and later worldwide.
  • His tastes, aligned with influential critic Robert Parker, favored ripe, lush, fruit-forward wines, influencing global style and sales.

• Controversy and Fame

  “Robert Parker... became equally renowned and reviled, began his career at around the same time. And the confluence of their tastes changed the wine industry.”
  — John Fasman (21:12)

  • Accused of homogenizing global wine by critics and traditionalists. Featured in the muckraking documentary Mondovino as a “flying winemaker.”
  • Not shy about deriding winemaking “nostalgia,” nor about the business realities:

    “‘If I say micro oxygenate, she micro oxygenates. If it doesn’t work, she fires me. ... Wine is done for what?’ he asked rhetorically. ‘The Pine Public. Wine is a business. They want to make wine to sell wine.’”
    — John Fasman (25:45)

  • Proud of his practical, market-oriented approach.

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Notable Quotes by Segment

• James Miles on Xi Successor:

  “What we’re seeing gradually is the formation of a new kind of gerontocracy in China with Xi Jinping at the head...” (07:45)

• Guy Scriven on the European Tech Scene:

  “In Europe, it’s a reasonably new thing that’s happening... it gives people a hope that Europe could grasp this opportunity in terms of becoming a tech power.” (16:40)

• John Fasman quoting Michel Rolland:

  “If she understood everything, she wouldn’t need me. If I say micro oxygenate, she micro oxygenates. If it doesn’t work, she fires me.” (23:30)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• China Leadership and Xi’s Succession: 02:09–10:48
• Europe’s Tech Landscape: 12:39–20:44
• Michel Rolland Obituary: 20:56–26:08

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Episode Tone & Takeaways

• Analytical, crisp, and laced with nuanced skepticism—consistent with The Economist’s signature style.
• Offers well-grounded reasons for concern over China's opaque political trajectory, cautious optimism for Europe's tech future, and a clear-eyed, unsentimental celebration of Rolland’s wine legacy.

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This summary is designed to give a listener the full substance and flavor of the episode’s key discussions and notable moments—without the need to sit through adverts, intros, or outros.

Transcript

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[Jason Palmer]

The economist. Hello and welcome to the Intelligence from the Economist. I'm Jason Palmer.

[Rosie Blore]

And I'm Rosie Blore. Every weekday we provide a fresh perspective on the events shaping your world.

[Jason Palmer]

When the big countries and regions for high tech are mentioned, Europe doesn't often get a look in, but our correspondent says that is changing, in part because Europe's few early tech winners are now spinning out more and more new ones.

[Rosie Blore]

And Michel Rolland spent his school holidays riding a tractor and helping with the harvest. For him, there was no question of doing anything other than spending his life among vineyards. We remember the life of a master wine connoisseur. But first, In China, a 5 yearly churn of leadership posts is underway. Hundreds of thousands of jobs will change hands in this giant reshuffle, moves that will affect every level except one. Xi Jinping, China's ruler, is almost certain to hold on to his position, which will be confirmed at next year's pivotal Party Congress. All of which means some people are already wondering what might happen a further five years on, by which time Xi Jinping will be 79.

[James Miles]

Xi Jinping ripped up the succession rules in 2018 when he revised them to allow himself to be president for life.

[Rosie Blore]

James Miles is our global China writer.

[James Miles]

So coming up to next year's party Congress, the 21st, we'll be looking for signs as to whether he might actually, in spite of that, be lining up a successor.

[Rosie Blore]

James, for a number of decades, you've been a professional tea leaf reader of the Chinese Communist Party. What sorts of things are we looking for? And just talk us through the process.

[James Miles]

Well, we're just at the early stages now of a 5 yearly churn of the Chinese leadership. And this is always a very stressful part of the Chinese political process. A couple of years are spent changing the jobs at every level of the Communist Party and the state apparatus from bottom to top. And we saw this getting underway at the end of last year with elections in hundreds of thousands of villages across the country. That's a process that actually involves people casting a vote, but of course it's a sham. The winners are decided in advance, and the winners are almost always local Communist Party bosses. And that then works up through the system this year with local party chiefs, government officials chosen. Eventually it will reach the provincial level. And ultimately this will lead to a Communist Party congress late next year, which will see the party's ruling elite reshuffled massively. And only one job will remain for sure at the end of it in the same hands, and that will be Xi Jinping's.

[Rosie Blore]

So tell me what we know about what happens at the top, the reshuffle of the ruling elite. Who fills those positions?

[James Miles]

Well, those positions are going to be filled by Xi Jinping's loyalists. We saw at the last Communist party Congress in 2022 that he had filled the ruling Politburo with people who had worked closely with him, who were closely identified with him, and were clearly his yes men. So anyone who is not of that ilk, I think, is extremely unlikely to be in the frame for those very top slots. But I think what we won't see is the injection into it, crucially, of younger officials who are being groomed to take over from Xi Jinping at the Congress after that in 2032. I think that would go against what we've seen so far, which is Xi Jinping wanting to concentrate power in his own hands and wanting really nothing to do with the traditional kind of succession arrangements that his predecessors have been involved in.

[Rosie Blore]

Xi Jinping was originally supposed to step down in 2022. He obviously abolished term limits. Are there any signs that he's preparing a successor now for in five years, none whatsoever.

[James Miles]

A key indication of succession arrangements being made would be the placing into the Central Military Commission, that's the Armed Forces supreme body, of a civilian leader in addition to Xi Jinping. At the moment, Xi Jinping is the only civilian in that body, and another civilian is normally put into it in preparation for that person taking over as the supreme commander. We saw that in 2010 when Xi Jinping was placed in the Central Military Commission. Two years later, he took over as General Secretary and Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces, and then as president. That hasn't happened yet and is highly unlikely to happen before the next Congress in 2032. I think the last position that Xi would want to surrender is that of commander of the Armed Forces. That is the one that confers the most power of all of the three big jobs he's got. We would be possibly looking for those younger officials not only in the Politburo, but also in the wider Central Committee. That's a body of the ruling elite that consists of more than 300 people. Those people might ultimately become candidates for membership of the Politburo or even to take over as General Secretary. But we see even at the level of the Central Committee, fewer and fewer younger people are getting jobs and even at the provincial level. So what we're seeing gradually is the formation of a new kind of gerontocracy in China with Xi Jinping at the head of it, who is reluctant not only to take on people who are not as yes men, but also reluctant to take on people who are yes men of yes men, because they are one step removed.

[Rosie Blore]

James, there's no shortage of younger Communist Party members. So why isn't he injecting younger blood into the Politburo and beyond?

[James Miles]

Well, I think it's a problem that is hardwired into the system. It is extremely difficult to arrange a succession that doesn't prove turbulent. His predecessors tried, and those succession arrangements fell apart. So you're kind of damned if you do and damned if you don't in China. Appoint a successor and things start getting tense between that person who has been identified as successor and the actual leader. Don't appoint a successor. And the chance then of huge fighting once the leader has left the scene is enormous. And I think Xi Jinping may well have decided. Why should I bother?

[Rosie Blore]

Xi Jinping can't live forever. So what does happen next?

[James Miles]

Well, assuming that he remains in good health until the 22nd Party Congress in 2032, I think we're going to see more and more questioning among the elite as to what should happen. It may be that Xi Jinping himself doesn't really want to face up to this question. And don't forget that this reshuffle is taking place against a backdrop of huge stress already as a result of the purges, particularly that have happened since the last Congress in 2022, about a fifth of the Central Committee has been purged since then. Maybe about a half of the top leaders of the armed forces, the People's Liberation Army. I mean, all of this, a huge upheaval within the elites. Of course, many officials who have been purged under Xi Jinping, who are resentful of that and are certainly eager to know whether they might have futures after Xi Jinping is gone. So you've got all this stress, all this tension, these questions being asked, and I think the possibility for more unexpected things to happen in Chinese politics over the next five years is really quite considerable.

[Rosie Blore]

James, thank you very much.

[James Miles]

Thank you.

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[Guy Scriven]

If you take the world's top 100 tech companies divided up into regions, what you'll notice is that European companies account for only 6. Of that 100American companies make up about 56, and Chinese companies about 16.

[Jason Palmer]

Guy Scriven is our global business writer.

[Guy Scriven]

What this tells you is something that's been well known for a long time. Europe is a laggard when it comes to creating tech giants. But more recently, we've seen that Europe now has a chance to close that gap.

[Jason Palmer]

Well, let's start with why that gap exists in the first place. There's plenty of people, plenty of money, plenty of talent.

[Guy Scriven]

Yeah, that's exactly right. In a sense, Europe is a bigger consumer market than America. If you add in the EU, Norway and Britain, there's over 500 million people there. Its problem is that it's divided up by different languages, different cultures, different sets of rules and laws. And that makes it really hard for companies to scale in the same way that they can in America, America or China. Another problem related to the fragmentation is that Europe has rather shallow capital markets. And that means if you're a tech company trying to grow fast, it's harder to get the cash that you need to invest.

[Jason Palmer]

But you hinted that something's changing. There's hope to close the gap. Talk me through it.

[Guy Scriven]

Yeah, there's hope on the horizon. So probably two really big things are happening. The first thing is that China and America have been making quite big mistakes when it comes to nurturing their small tech companies in the last few years. And the second thing that's happening is that the few tech successes that Europe has had in the past decade or so are starting to help to nurture new companies and invest in them. And that's creating a kind of ecosystem and helping what techies like to call the flywheel get spinning.

[Jason Palmer]

So, coming back to the decision making in America and China, what do you mean by that?

[Guy Scriven]

So start with America. One of the big problems that Europe's realized in the past few years is that the Trump administration has basically become quite an unreliable ally. And that's meant that lots of European governments and to some extent European businesses are more worried about using American technology for everything they do. I heard this from a lot of European startup founders that they were getting more business from European companies and to some extent from European governments that were worried about being overly reliant on American tech. So that's one way in which American missteps are helping European tech companies. Another way has to do with the flows of talent. There's long been a brain drain on European tech talent traveling to America to go to Silicon Valley because the opportunities were better there. That brain drain seems to have started to reverse itself. And so if you speak to European tech companies, they say it's become easier to hire top American talent into Europe. If you look east from Europe, the mistake that China has made is that the government is getting really very involved in the tech ecosystem. It's handing out subsidies to industries that it thinks are particularly strategic on a much bigger scale than the subsidies in the West. It's putting its thumb on the scales in lots of different ways. This is driving out private capital. And as a result, China's share of venture capital investment has actually fallen in the past five years or so. And some of that capital, we think, is flowing to Europe instead.

[Jason Palmer]

So, broadly, a lot of talent from America, a lot of money that might have otherwise gone into China coming to Europe. How are European techies responding to that opportunity that they're presented with?

[Guy Scriven]

Well, one thing that's happened in Europe, I think, is that the European tech ecosystem has just become a bit older. And one of the things that's meant is that past European success stories, companies like Klarna and Spotify and Revolut, their founders, who are now millionaires and billionaires, have been able to invest their money back into the European tech ecosystem. And that is helping with the kind of flywheel to get spinning. So that's one thing which is happening. Another thing which is happening is that these kind of successful tech companies are also creating more startups as well. I read a statistic that former employees of Klarna have created something like 60 different startups. And so this is something you see all the time in Silicon Valley. It's been happening for decades in the valley, but in Europe, it's a reasonably new thing that's happening and a new phenomenon. And it gives people a hope that Europe could grasp this opportunity in terms of becoming a tech power.

[Jason Palmer]

So what's the outcome of all of this, do you think? Does Europe rise to the level of America or China in the tech stakes?

[Guy Scriven]

No, probably not anytime soon. Right. We said at the beginning Europe has far fewer big tech companies. If you look at new, exciting technologies like AI, it also seems way behind in a lot of the important parts of that. So I think it only produced two of the really exciting Frontier models out of about 100 in 2025. So in areas like AI model making, it seems to be falling behind. But there are particular bright spots in Europe, and we looked at three. So one is climate tech, another is defence tech, and another is deep tech. And these are areas which seem to be particularly promising for Europe in Various ways. So if you look at the climate tech spending in Europe, the total amount of venture investment a few years ago was about a quarter of what was happening in America. And Europe is catching up there, so now it's about half. So there's promising opportunities there, for instance.

[Jason Palmer]

And what about deep tech and defense tech also? What's deep tech?

[Guy Scriven]

The best definition is that it's a kind of business where the majority of the risk is scientific rather than in the business model. So you're actually trying to invent something new rather than making a business to business software platform, the right product to sell to HR departments.

[Jason Palmer]

So like quantum computing, that kind of thing?

[Guy Scriven]

Yeah, quantum computing, fusion energy, that kind of thing. Where the kind of science is somewhat unproven at this point. So deep tech and defense tech are two of the other kind of big opportunity areas. Defense tech has really got a boost again from America as Trump seems like less and less of a reliable ally to NATO. European governments have been increasing their spending, so that's jumped about 40% between 2023 and 2025. And that's created a whole load of opportunities for these new defence tech startups. And these are companies like Helsing, which make drones, Quantum Systems, which is another drone maker, and there's a whole bunch of them that are trying to benefit from the increase in European defence budgets.

[Jason Palmer]

So not trying to take on America directly, but definitely Europe seems to be more likely than before to find itself deeply techie niches.

[Guy Scriven]

Yeah, that's right. This all could go wrong. There's plenty of investors I spoke to who've been investing in European tech for decades, and they say that every few years there's a new European horizon in tech, so everything could fall apart. But with that caveat, it does look much more promising for European tech than it did just a few years ago. And particularly with the state of America and China at the moment, there are plenty of reasons to be optimistic about where European tech might be in five, ten years from now.

[Jason Palmer]

Thanks very much for your time, Guy.

[Guy Scriven]

Thank you, Jason.

[John Fasman]

Wine is a simple product. Yeast converts the sugar and grape juice into alcohol and carbon dioxide through fermentation.

[Rosie Blore]

John Fasman, our senior culture correspondent, is standing in for our obituaries at editor.

[John Fasman]

People have been making it, or for much of human history, allowing it to be made by nature for more than 8,000 years. After the flood, Noah planted a vineyard. Jesus first miracle was turning water into wine. Nearly a millennium ago, Omar Khayyam, a Persian mathematician, astronomer and poet, asserted that wilderness would be paradise with just A jug of wine, a loaf of bread, and thou beside me singing. And yet most of it, probably most of the wine ever drunk, for most of human history was not very good. Nature takes a long time to turn juice into wine. Sometimes what it makes is delicious, but sometimes it's undrinkable, or at best, generously called complex. Some consider this part of wine's romance. It is, after all, a living thing. And as people are, Michel Roland had little patience for such starry eyed babble. Wine is an agricultural product made by human hands, and like anything else people make, it could be improved. Which is not to say that he scorned the romance and lineage of wine, especially French wine. He was, after all, born into a family of vintners and Pomerol, on Bordeaux's right bank. His grandparents founded Chateau Le Bon Pasteur, which still produces velvety, elegant reds, and he spent the school holidays riding the tractor and helping with the harvest. There was no question of doing anything else, he once said. But he left the vineyards, first for university, where he studied enology, and then for a laboratory that he joined with his wife in Libourne, on the banks of the Dordogne, to chemically analyze wines. This was in the mid-1970s, in the midst of a bad stretch for Bordeaux. Poor weather led to a series of bad vintages. Rumors of adulterated wine had crippled sales and financial pressures, left many chateaux strapped for cash. Mr. Roland started consulting for local wineries. He stressed the importance of waiting to pick grapes until they were fully ripe, and reminding vintners that winemaking begins in the field, not the cell. Burly and bearded, with a ready laugh and a renowned gift for blending grapes, he also started visiting California just as Napa and Sonoma valleys were coming into their own. And the newly flushed baby boom generation began taking a serious interest in wines. Robert Parker, a critic who ranked wines at 100 point scale and who, like Mr. Rolland, became equally renowned and reviled, began his career at around the same time. And the confluence of their tastes changed the wine industry. They both liked ripe, plush and fruit forward red, high in alcohol and low in acidity, with heavy notes of sweetness and roundness from the new oak barrels used for aging. Mr. Parker rated such wines favorably, which boosted sales, and Mr. Roland helped vintners produce them. Mr. Roland, who consulted for vintners as far afield as India, South Africa and Israel, insisted that he did not impose a style. He simply helped ambitious vintners understand what their terroir could produce. But his critics didn't let him off. So easily. Mondovino, a muckraking documentary about wine and globalization released in 2004, showed him in the back of a Mercedes, barking into a mobile phone before they were ubiquitous and calling himself winkingly in English, a flying winemaker. Small scale winemakers talked reverently about and sometimes to their vines and discussed the wines they produced as a religious experience and a communion with their earth and climate. They derided contemporary Bordeaux because it worships only money, they said. Mr. Roland, meanwhile, derided the peasants, bumpkins and hicks standing in the way of progress. He told a chateau owner to micro oxygenate her wines. Asked if she understood what it meant, Mr. Roland answered, no, but she doesn't give a damn. If she understood everything, she wouldn't need me. If I say micro oxygenate, she micro oxygenates. If it doesn't work, she fires me. Mr. Alon said the film was good for business after all. It showed him as he was decisive and thoughtful, with a ready laugh. And above all, successful vintners took his advice because it worked. People liked and bought the wines he helped create. Nostalgia was a mugs game. In a late career interview with the New York Times, he recalled that when he first started going to Napa, you could taste all the good wine produced in the county in an hour. Now he couldn't taste all the good wines in a week. Some may complain that too many wines taste too similar, but if that is what the market wants, that's what vintners will produce. Wine is done for what? He asked rhetorically. The Pine Public Wine is a business. They want to make wine to sell wine.

[Rosie Blore]

John Fasman on Michel Roland, who has died aged 78. That's it for this episode of the Intelligence. The show's editors are Chris Impey and Jack Gill. Our deputy editor is Sarah Larnuke and our sound designer is Will Rowe, with help this week from Mark Burrows. Our senior creative producer is William Warren and our senior development producer is Rory Galloway. Our senior producers are Henrietta McFarlane and Alize Jean Baptiste and our producers are Anne Hannah and Jonathan Day. Our assistant producer is Kunal Patel, with extra production help this week from Benji Guy. We'll all see you back here for the weekend. Intelligence Tomorrow.

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