Will China have truly competitive multi-party elections by 2040?

[Lord Halifax]

Lol no, try more something like 2240.

Even if the CPC were to collapse (which it's not), I'd say a more likely scenario is some sort of dictatorship like modern day Russia. Other than Hong Kong (and Macao I guess) and Taiwan, which is not part of the PRC ("real China") anyways, there is no history of democracy in China.

Best case scenario, Taiwan becomes fully independent and so do Hong Kong and Macau. They all have free multy party elections. The rest of China stays a dictatorship.

It's impossible to know for how long the Communist Party of China can hang on, but every ruling party loses power at some point. The CPC has already been in power for nearly 70 years, which is almost as long as the PRI (71) and the CPSU (74). So the question is under what circumstances it loses power and what replaces it, not whether it will lose power.

[Lord Halifax]

To degree that PRC/USSR comparisons are useful, Xi is a somewhat competent Khrushchev, not a Brezhnev.

That doesn't make any sense.

[Lord Halifax]

To degree that PRC/USSR comparisons are useful, Xi is a somewhat competent Khrushchev, not a Brezhnev.

That doesn't make any sense.

Neither does assuming the PRC will follow the same trajectory as the USSR. My main point was that we're nowhere near the end of single party rule in China.

It's not just the USSR, it's every country that has ever had single party rule. Everything ends at some point.  

Xi is an authoritarian and not a reformer, so he is a Brezhnev type.

[Lord Halifax]

Without external turmoil, the Soviet Union would likely have been able to survive intact despite its internal problems. As it is, after a decade of multi-party chaos, Russia has returned to single party rule. Having learned from history, I can't see any major actors in the CPC or PLA seeking to liberalize politics in China for at least the next half century.

I wasn't talking about liberalization, but the end of the one-party system. The current Russian system is not party based. United Russia merely serves as a tool for Putin, and his replacement will not be selected by party structures.

[Lord Halifax]

they know that China's large tech companies can be killed with a pen and paper in Washington.

That seems hyperbolic.