Pundits predicting the collapse of the Chinese Communist Party have been proven wrong decade after decade.
The CCP — which recently celebrated its 70th birthday — is one of the longest running single-party regimes in modern history.
But one-party governments have rarely survived longer than 70 years: the Communist Party of the Soviet Union ruled for 74 years before the bloc collapsed in 1991, and Mexico's Institutional Revolutionary Party retained power for 71 years until its defeat in the 2000 elections.
China's only contemporary competition is North Korea, which has been ruled by the Kim family dynasty for 71 years, since its founding in 1948.
Analysts say while there's no time limit on authoritarian governments, the CCP's one-party rule may not be sustainable in the long run despite its past resilience and distinctiveness from other regimes.
But to look at when and how China could eventually undergo political reform, it's important to first understand how the CCP has kept its grip on power for so long.
How did the CCP manage to survive this long?
Rory Truex, assistant professor of politics and international affairs at Princeton University, told the ABC the CCP was unique in terms of how it has mitigated the two major threats to authoritarian regimes — coups and revolutions.
To prevent the former, Mr Truex said the party had a system to ensure the transfer of power from one leader to the next happened "relatively peacefully".
China's Communist Party is at a fatal age for one-party regimes. How much longer can it survive?
The contrast between China today and the Soviet Union before its collapse couldn't be more stark.
By the time Mikhail Gorbachev became the leader of the Soviet Union in 1985, the economy was already in decline, and his aim was to revive it with two major reforms: perestroika and glasnost (economic reform and political opening).
Sarah Percy, an associate professor of international relations at the University of Queensland, wrote recently that the economic reforms invited public criticism — but "the problem with allowing some criticism is that it becomes impossible to control".
"Once people were allowed to speak out in some areas, they inevitably began to do so in others, challenging the state's control over political issues as well as economic ones," she wrote.
Glasnost opened up a Pandora's box of free speech, with decreased media censorship allowing criticism of government officials.
