The expected appointment of Xi Jinping to a third term as head of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) at the 20th Party Congress this fall is likely to lead to ever tighter and more autocratic control over Beijing’s fiscal, military, and national security policies, said experts at a virtual hearing of a U.S. congressional advisory body on Jan. 27. Panelists at a hearing of the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission addressed a broad range of topics whose common denominator was the enhanced centralized control that is likely to occur following the twice-in-a-decade Party Congress, and the potentially dramatic consequences for China and the world. One of the defining characteristics of Xi Jinping’s reign as CCP general secretary has been a tendency to strengthen the Party aggressively and make it more prominent within the apparatus of government, said Nis Grünberg, a lead analyst and the Berlin-based Mercator Institute for China Studies. …