Since the 20th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), there has been no shortage of debate over who is President Xi Jinping’s second-in-command. As the 70-year-old official Cai Qi’s role has grown, many observers have come to identify him as that “No. 2.” A recent article in the Economist takes precisely this view, arguing that Cai—as a member of the Politburo Standing Committee, first-ranked member of the CCP Secretariat, and director of the CCP General Office—has long accompanied Xi at important events and controls the top leader’s schedule, documents, meetings, information flow, and security arrangements.

Cai is indeed one of the people closest to Xi in Chinese politics today. But proximity to supreme power is not the same as being close to holding it. Cai is of course important, but he is not China’s de facto second-in-command. Such a figure, under a leader as paranoid about sharing power as Xi, doesn’t really exist.

In a highly personalized power system, a gatekeeper role can often carry very real power. The great eunuchs of ancient China held genuine power not because they had formal institutional standing, but because they monopolized the channel between the emperor and the outer court. They were the gatekeepers of what memorials the emperor read, whom he met, what he heard, and how the outer court understood the emperor’s will. They depended on imperial power, but that gave them enormous reach.

But even measured by this standard, Cai is not the de facto No. 2. He has not monopolized the channels between Xi and the party, government, military, and other systems, nor has he formed an independent power bloc. Perhaps it is not that he does not want to, but that he cannot.

Xi is not an emperor sealed off by Cai, able to reach outside information only through him. The military, national security, discipline inspection, organization and personnel apparatus, and economic and governmental administration all have their own systems. Cai is close to Xi, but that does not mean he controls all the channels leading to Xi.

This is the difference between Cai and a great eunuch or favorite minister who becomes a No. 2 figure. A great eunuch or favorite could stand “beneath one person and above 10,000,” as the saying goes, because he both represented the emperor and could use the emperor’s name to manufacture his own political will.

The power Cai has displayed is mainly execution, transmission, coordination, and supervision. He can amplify Xi’s will, but there is no sign that he can substitute for it. He can push implementation, but there is no sign that he can independently reorder policy priorities. Cai’s strength lies in being a cog in Xi’s machinery of power.

Closeness to the top leader is not the only source of power. One must also consider several harder criteria: whether the official in question controls a key system; whether he can, in the top leader’s absence, settle matters on behalf of the center; whether he is ranked ahead of other Standing Committee members on major party platforms; and whether he can mobilize resources, cadres, finance, security, and local implementation systems. By these standards, Cai is difficult to describe as the de facto No. 2.

The simplest example is the question of who “keeps watch at home.” The CCP has institutional rules: If the top leader goes abroad and is away for too long, a temporary person in charge must be designated to serve as acting general secretary, handle major affairs of state and military, and maintain the daily operation of the top leadership. That person could only first be Li Qiang, China’s premier, not Cai.

Li ranks second on the Standing Committee, is premier of the State Council, and is the first person to receive and carry forward the governmental and economic systems. In the party’s core commissions and in cross-sectoral, overall party meetings, Li’s role is more important than Cai’s.

Several core CCP institutions—the Central National Security Commission, the Central Comprehensively Deepening Reforms Commission, and the Central Financial and Economic Affairs Commission—are among the most important party deliberation and coordination platforms of the Xi era. If Cai were truly the de facto No. 2, he should at least occupy a position in these commissions that shows a higher level of responsibility than Li. But Li ranks ahead of Cai on most of these platforms.

In the Central Financial and Economic Affairs Commission in particular, Li is the deputy leader, while Cai is only a regular member. Since reform and opening, financial and economic work has in practice been, most of the time, the CCP’s most important business, and the financial and economic commission is the core platform through which the party leads economic work.

The chairing and concluding roles at important party meetings also illustrate the point. The study sessions for principal provincial and ministerial-level cadres are typical high-level party meetings dominated by Xi, not State Council meetings or ordinary administrative meetings. Their procedure is that Xi delivers an important speech and Li presides. The Central Economic Work Conference is even clearer: Xi speaks, Li presides and delivers the concluding speech, while Cai merely attends both meetings.

These arrangements are not matters of ceremonial detail. In the politics of CCP meetings, “attending,” “presiding,” “delivering a concluding speech,” and “deploying implementation” represent different political roles. Cai’s attendance shows that he is inside the core circle; Li’s presiding and concluding show that he bears the function of overall responsibility beneath Xi.

Others may say that Li handles governmental affairs while Cai handles party affairs, and that in the CCP system the party stands above the government. This is correct in principle. But when it comes to actual power, it cannot be stated so broadly. Party affairs themselves have layers. The most important parts of party work are organization and personnel, discipline inspection, political-legal affairs, security, and ideology.

What Cai truly controls is the General Office; the daily coordination of the Secretariat; the Central and State Organs Working Committee; and documents, meetings, study sessions, implementation, and supervision centered on Xi’s will. These are of course important, but they are more about executing Xi’s desires than exercising Cai’s own power.

In addition, the most crucial organizational power in party affairs is not in Cai’s hands. The head of the Central Organization Department, which controls promotions and appointments within the party system, is Shi Taifeng, and the organization system operates directly around Xi. Cadre appointment, inspection, promotion, and transfer are the core links through which CCP power is produced. Cai can put forward political requirements for organizational work at the Secretariat level, and he can attend important meetings of the organization system, but this does not mean he directly controls the Central Organization Department. In other words, what Cai holds within party affairs is the power to coordinate decisions already made, not the most core organizational power.

By contrast, Li controls the governmental and economic systems. Governmental affairs are not as elevated as party affairs in principle, but in national governance they play a more concrete role. How fiscal support is provided, how local debt is resolved, how the property sector is handled, how consumption is stimulated, how industrial policy is advanced, how foreign investment is stabilized, how local governments operate, and how employment pressure is cushioned—these are all hard problems of the state machine. Cai can supervise implementation; Li must carry out the operation. The pressure and responsibility he bears are greater and more important than ordinary party work.

This is also where the Economist’s judgment is most prone to error. It sees Cai’s position at Xi’s side but underestimates the segmented nature of the CCP’s power structure. The Xi era is indeed one of highly personalized centralization, but that does not mean all power is transmitted through Cai alone.

On the contrary, Xi’s method is to divide power among different people, allowing his own trusted associates to control different power blocs. Cai is an important hub connecting these systems, but he is not in control of them.

As noted above, a true second-in-command is not merely important when the leader is present; he must also be able to hold the situation together when the leader is absent. Cai’s power depends heavily on Xi’s presence. The stronger Xi is, the more important Cai is; the more present Xi is, the more useful Cai becomes. But once Xi is absent, the person more likely to temporarily carry forward overall governance is still Li, not Cai.

Thus, any judgment of Cai must avoid two extremes. To say he is merely a secretary would of course underestimate him. He is no ordinary secretary, but a Standing Committee-level central executor, a “grand steward of the inner court.” The information, channels, and supervisory capacity he controls are enough to make him one of the most important figures in Xi’s system. But to say he is China’s de facto second-most powerful person is to overestimate him.

In fact, the essence of Xi’s system is not that Cai has replaced Li as the new No. 2, but that Xi has deliberately eliminated any complete second-in-command in the real sense. Everyone is assigned a piece of power, but no one is allowed to form a center of power of their own, even one beneath Xi. Cai is only the piece closest to Xi, the most important close-range operator in Xi’s personal power machine.

Cai’s prominence gives outsiders the impression that Xi is relying more and more on him. But this is not because he has become a second power center. It is because in a system without a true second-in-command, the person closest to the leader is the easiest to mistake for one.