Hopefully not. Xi could have been as good for China as Deng Xiaoping was. After his elections, he ousted the military out of the CCP parliament, and despite what our media said, it was a good thing for the world stability (and also why the 'china will invade Taiwan' discourse to me was a sign of a simple mind).

However the last 10 years I'm not impressed, even if I ignore the Uyghur genocide and hongkong political repression (and I don't). The number of millionaires in the Chinese parliament grew extremely fast. The CCP is older and while it never truly represented China, it is even less diverse than it used to be. The parliament is richer, older and more masculine than it ever was, and the politburo is even worse. The obvious issues from China's rural areas stayed ignored for years, and the only way the politburo addressed it was on a very limited way, through a genocide (not a violent one, so it is palatable to their intelligentsia, but still a genocide).

Still, I think the author is too hard on China. Xi and his government still have to have the parliament support, and it can be lost quickly. Xi's death won't suddenly make the 2.5k parliament member quits and take arms. Most of them are from the economic elites (farm/boat/factory owners), and wouldn't support any kind of local mayhem.