New Delhi, March 30 -- AFTER A DRAMATIC recent purge of China's generals, the country's ruler, Xi Jinping, faces another stressful task. A five-yearly churn of leadership posts from bottom to top has begun: hundreds of thousands of jobs in the Communist Party and in the state's apparatus will change hands. The gigantic reshuffle, which reaches its climax at the 21st party congress late next year, will fuel anxiety among China's already twitchy military and political elites.

One man's place, however, is safe. Mr Xi's positions as the party's general secretary and commander-in-chief of the armed forces are all but certain to be renewed just after the congress. (Ditto, in March 2028, at the annual session of China's rubber-stamp parliament,...