> China has a lot of retail politics, it's just in the context of a single-party system.

I'll tell you a communist joke:

"Any party member has a primal fear of an election with more than one candidate"

Why? "Because it means that one of choices is wrong"

I my opinion, that is only nominally a joke, and the joke tells a lot about CPCs internal arrangement: pick a wrong side even once, an you are a toast, and you are better off supporting status-quo