Xi Jinping China’s President for Life Consolidates Authority

Last Updated on May 21, 2018 by Bharat Saini

China’s President Xi Jinping can now serve as President indefinitely as China’ s parliament National Peoples Congress (NPC) on March 11, 2018 abolished decades-old practice of two-term limits for the president and endorsed changes in country’s Constitution that would empower President Xi Jinping to weather headwinds – that challenge China’s new stage of transition, which the ruling Communist Party  justified, saying the historic decision is aimed at strengthening coordination among various power centres and dismissed as ungrounded concerns over the return of the Mao Zedong-era dictatorship. China’s parliament also included Xi’s political doctrine: ‘Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era,’ as part of the amended Constitution. Prior to Mr. Xi, only the founding father of the People’s Republic of China, Mao Zedong, and the late paramount leader Deng Xiaoping have their personal ideologies engraved in the Constitution.

• NPC ratified the Communist Party of Chinas (CPC) proposal to remove the term limit for President and Vice President; reportedly to strengthen coordination between the party, the military and the country.
• Xi Jinping, aged 64 year born -15 June 1953 married to Peng Liyuan in 1987, already wields real power as:
  • President of the People’s Republic of China
  • CPC’s General Secretary, a post that has no term limit.
  • Chairman Central Military Commission, the apex body that marshals the People’s Liberation Army (PLA).
• Constitution revised 21 items that include provisions for setting up a National Supervisory Commission: an anti-corruption super agency
• China under Xi on crackdown on rival under Anti-corruption campaign has resulted in exit of more than 100 top General and officials and the campaign is still a work in progress, and needs time to settle. According to political commentator Robert Lawrence Kuhn, “Advancing reform has become more difficult, with entrenched interest groups resisting change. So the message to resistors is now this: get on the programme because you can’t outwit or outwait President Xi”.
• China has clamped down on many emerging freedoms, increasing its state surveillance and censorship programs and arrest of dissidents
• China has become more assertive in the South China Sea region.
• One Belt, One Road project of $5 trillion whose span extends to more than 60 countries is Xi’s brainchild.
• Xi, with power fully consolidated can now authoritatively achieve the “two centenary” goals: making China a “moderately prosperous society” by 2020 serving as a platform for becoming an advanced socialist nation by 2050.