[Ericson2314]

The population can't but other high level party officials could perhaps. The CPP also has had much internal drama over centralization, the Xi pro-centralization faction could also loose out more broadly if there was a power struggle.

IMO dictatorship / monarchy is a funny thing because after a certain scale the person at the top simply cannot be an absolutely power in the same way because there's too much going on. I think there more reasonable things to look at are:

- How many extra luxuries does then nominal ruler get, and do they "distract" from their power/responsibilities. (Perhaps there is even a strict luxery power trade off? not sure.)

- How is centralized is the bureaucracy, e.g. how many people outside the capital have power greater than those in the capital.