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

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

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

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

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.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

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.

Maybe a Stalin type, but Xi is not presiding over the last gasps of single party rule, so comparing him to Brezhnev is ludicrous.  Unlike the USSR, the PRC has no external empire to collapse and plunge the core into chaos. Also it has the lesson of what happened so that it is unlikely for any faction within the CPC to be in favor of political liberalization. As you say, nothing lasts forever, but there's zero chance the CPC relinquishes control within the next two decades.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

You're focusing too much on internal conditions rather than external ones in my opinion. The collapse of the Soviet Union and thus of the CPSU was due primarily to what happened outside the Soviet Union. But China's relationship to the rest of the world is nothing like that of the Soviet Union after the Great Patriotic War. Also, the slowing of economic growth as China becomes more economically developed has long been expected. That slowdown may cause Xi some problems, but is unlikely to cause the CPC problems unless it turns into a collapse.

The Soviet Union's foreign influence was based on military support, which proved unsustainable. China's is based on economic intervention and it currently has ample means.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

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.