As a dictator’s desire for princeling successors collides with the elites’ desire for power-sharing, inclusive authoritarian institutions are antithetical to dynastic succession. The theoretical arguments are tested here in contemporary China. We provide the first systematic evidence of prevalent dynastic succession in China. At the individual level, the princelings enjoyed political favors from national leaders, but they were resisted at more inclusive institutions such as provincial government and the national communist party congress, in particular during dynastic transition. Our findings are robust as we utilize two separate measures of clandestine princeling status: one comes from comprehensive qualitative research, the other comes from a huge database of Chinese given names and our new text-analysis model that exploits the unique style with which the communist revolutionary leaders named their babies. Our research suggests that dictators face a fundamental tradeoff between dynastic succession and institutionalization.