BEIJING (Bloomberg) – China’s Communist Party is set to repeal presidential term limits in a move that would allow Xi Jinping to rule beyond 2023, completing the country’s move away from a political system based on collective leadership..
BEIJING (Bloomberg) – China’s Communist Party is set to repeal presidential term limits in a move that would allow Xi Jinping to rule beyond 2023, completing the country’s move away from a political system based on collective leadership.
The party’s Central Committee announced Sunday that it was seeking to strike a constitutional provision barring the head of state from serving more than two consecutive terms. That would remove the only formal barrier to Xi, who is also party leader and commander-in-chief of the military, staying in power indefinitely.
Xi’s move was first flagged at a party meeting last October, although Sunday’s formal announcement shows the extent of his grip on power heading into the start of his second term.
It dispenses with the orderly succession system China adopted in the aftermath of Mao Zedong’s chaotic rule as it sought legitimacy from the West, and draws comparisons with Vladimir Putin’s successful effort to consolidate control over Russia’s post-Soviet democracy.
Xi has visited Moscow more than other capital city since he came to power in 2012.
Putin told China’s state broadcaster they celebrated his birthday in 2013 by drinking vodka shots « like two college students ».
« I think Xi compares himself to, and is modelling himself on, Putin, and just look to see how Russia is developing, » said Fraser Howie, co-author of « Red Capitalism: The Fragile Financial Foundations of China’s Extraordinary Rise. »
« For the moment, nothing changes, of course, » Howie said.
« Xi is only going into his second term and a lot could still happen. »
Speculation that Xi, 64, might seek to stay on has intensified since he declined to set out a clear successor at the party’s twice-a-decade leadership reshuffle in October.
But the Constitutional amendment represents a formal break from the succession practices China set up to establish stability and facilitate its economic revival after the tumult of the Mao era.
Mao used his cult of personality to enact industrial policies blamed for tens of millions of starvation deaths and subjected the party’s elite to bloody purges.
