Editing Openai/69256b37-1cac-8004-bb0d-12fcbb764b89 (section)

==== 2. Medium term (2035–2055): Succession window, moderate odds ====

Here the key event in your language is a “succession morphism”: post-Xi reconfiguration.

Structural drivers
* Demographic + economic stress (aging, slower growth, unresolved debt) increase internal demand for more adaptive governance. The Diplomat<ref>{{cite web|title=The Diplomat|url=https://thediplomat.com/2025/11/chinas-exit-bans-are-breaking-a-decades-long-social-contract/|publisher=The Diplomat|access-date=2025-11-25}}</ref>
* A long personalist phase historically raises the eventual succession risk in authoritarian systems: factions may want more predictability and rule-bound norms after the strongman. Journal of Democracy<ref>{{cite web|title=Journal of Democracy|url=https://www.journalofdemocracy.org/articles/china-in-xis-new-era-the-return-to-personalistic-rule/|publisher=Journal of Democracy|access-date=2025-11-25}}</ref>

Perturbation from successful democracies

By the 2035–2055 window, Europe + East Asian democracies will likely have:
* Demonstrated decades of relatively stable performance under competitive elections and rule of law (even with crises). Wiley Online Library<ref>{{cite web|title=Wiley Online Library|url=https://erc.europa.eu/sites/default/files/2024-02/report_democracy.pdf|publisher=Wiley Online Library|access-date=2025-11-25}}</ref>
* Further entrenched pro-rule-of-law political cultures (Japan/Korea/Taiwan). NTU Scholars<ref>{{cite web|title=NTU Scholars|url=https://scholars.lib.ntu.edu.tw/bitstreams/b2fa3344-2cfd-45f4-9680-a72ccb4b9a84/download|publisher=NTU Scholars|access-date=2025-11-25}}</ref>

From a Bridge360 angle, that’s a persistent perturbation at the boundary:
* Elites, students, tech workers, and diaspora Chinese see empirical evidence that high-complexity societies can be governed with more open, feedback-rich templates.
* These examples erode the credibility of the CCP narrative that “only high autocracy can manage complexity.”

Bridge360 medium-term estimate

This horizon is where self-correction is most plausible, because:
* Succession is almost inevitable.
* Internal elites may want to re-institutionalize to protect themselves.
* External liberal-democratic performance provides a worked example of entropy-bounded, low-autocracy governance.

Still, there are strong counter-forces:
* Security apparatus + ideology can keep pushing toward “stability through repression.”
* A post-Xi successor might double down on nationalism rather than liberalization.

👉 Heuristic probability of meaningful self-correcting governance emerging in 2035–2055 (e.g., partial restoration of collective leadership, more rule-bound decision-making, some space for local experimentation):
≈ 30–45%

Not “multi-party democracy,” but entropy-bounded authoritarianism: lower personalism, more institutional feedback, less volatile F.