The Communist Party of China will convene next week, bolstering Xi's hold on power.

Next week, Chinese President Xi Jinping, the undisputed leader of the world's most populous country, will address a key meeting of the ruling party's senior executives, which will set the tone for his bid for a long-term reign.

Approximately 400 members of the Communist Party's all-powerful Central Committee meet behind closed doors in Beijing from Monday through Thursday.

The sole conference of its kind this year prepares the country for its 20th party congress next autumn, at which Xi is generally likely to be re-elected for a third term, consolidating his status as China's most powerful leader since Mao Zedong.

According to state news agency Xinhua, prominent figures will debate a crucial resolution recognizing the party's important achievements in its 100 years of existence during next week's plenary.

Analysts believe the resolution, which is only the third of its kind in the party's history, would help Xi cement his power by enshrining his vision for China ahead of the pivotal 2022 party congress.

The gathering will be held behind closed doors, as with other meetings of Beijing's secretive top leadership, and most crucial decisions will be made well in advance.

All of China's political gatherings are meticulously staged, and outright defiance of the official line is extremely rare.

Although the information has not yet been released as a whole, like with the previous two resolutions, the timing of the resolution is critical.

The first, passed in 1945 under Mao's leadership, helped him solidify his control over the Communist Party four years before it took power.

The second, implemented under Deng Xiaoping in 1981, saw the regime implement economic reforms and acknowledge Mao's "mistakes."

Unlike the previous two, Xi's resolution will not be a departure from tradition, according to Harvard University's Anthony Saich.

“Rather, it is meant to demonstrate that Xi is the natural inheritor of a process that has existed since the formation of the party and qualifies him to lead in the ‘new era,'” Saich explained.

"The goal is to cement Xi's position as the natural inheritor of the CCP's 'great past,'" he said, referring to the Chinese Communist Party.

The resolution, according to Saich, will likely take a step back from Deng's language in that it will be less critical of the Mao era, which lasted from 1949 to 1976.

Tens of millions of people died of starvation as Mao's administration tried to force the country into communes.

He launched the Cultural Revolution, a period of violence that damaged the national psyche, in the decade running up to his death.

Deng led the party in an attempt to avoid a repetition of Mao's personality cult if only to secure the party's dominance.

The passage of the resolution would signal "that Xi Jinping's authority is unchallenged," according to dissident political professor Wu Qiang, who lost his job as a lecturer at Tsinghua University in Beijing over his study.

Wu also believes the plenum would solidify China's return to a more "controlled, planned" economy, as seen by Xi's continued efforts to govern the country's massive corporations in industries ranging from tech to real estate.

The democratic island of Taiwan, which considers itself sovereign but Beijing claims as its own territory, could also be discussed at the meeting.

Regardless of the outcome of next week's meeting, Carl Minzner, a senior fellow for China studies at the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington, says Xi's undisputed authority is unaffected.

He told AFP, "The main problem is: how much higher could he go?"

"The tone and content of the resolution will very certainly give some indication of how Xi wants to be perceived," he said.

"As Mao and Deng's equal?" Or is it just Mao?”