Xi is a return towards Communism, or at least Communist-style control. And things have slowly gotten worse over his tenure. I think zero-Covid and the Shanghai debacle lost a lot of trust, too.

I don’t foresee the Party choosing someone more hardline than Xi, though. China has always been authoritarian, but collective ownership was new and an unmitigated disaster. They are too smart to go back that direction, although if they did, I could see that happening.