Chinese President Xi Jinping's securing of an unprecedented third term as the Communist Party's general secretary, his packing of the Politburo with with loyalists and dramatic removal of his predecessor, Hu Jintao, during the National People's Congress are ominous signs, warns China scholar Gordon Chang.

"The Chinese despot is pushing the region – and the world – toward war, and we are now far closer to conflict than many once thought," he wrote in a column for The Hill,

Another China watcher, Jacob Helberg, pointed out Wednesday on Twitter that the New York Times is reporting a Chinese spy chief has joined the Chinese Communist Party's top ranks for the first time.

"Is it me, or does this new Politburo look a lot like a wartime team?" wrote Helberg, a senior adviser at the Stanford University Center on Geopolitics and Technology. "Or maybe it's just Xi bringing up 'security' 89 times in his speech."