China’s main news outlets have come out to support and justify the ruling Communist Party’s stunning decision to change the country’s constitution to remove the 10-year limit on the presidency.
This is hardly surprising because, like in any authoritarian country where organs must show their “absolute loyalty” to the ruling regime, they have no choice but to endorse the move no matter how controversial it is.
Yet, it doesn’t mean “all Chinese people support the amendment” and blindly or passively “hope it can contribute to [their] well-being” as the Global Times, an influential party-backed publication claimed. On the contrary, there has been a considerable online push-back against the proposal since it was announced on Sunday, forcing the draconian regime to launch an intense censorship campaign.
Some Chinese netizens feared that their country could become North Korea, China’s despotic and regressive neighbor, while a former journalist publicly urged blocking the proposal because abolishing the two-term limit for the presidency means “moving backward into history [Mao Zedong’s turbulent era].”
It’s reported that there was even disquiet and opposition among the 200-strong Central Committee, one of the ruling party’s key decision-making bodies.
Although they didn’t openly voice their views, privately many other Chinese, including party members and intellectuals, probably share such apprehensions.
The constitutional change will likely pave the way for President Xi Jinping to rule China with absolute and unchecked power for an indefinite period
Indeed, they should be concerned and even alarmed because the constitutional change will likely pave the way for President Xi Jinping to rule China with absolute and unchecked power for an indefinite period and such a long one-man rule is seldom, if ever, a good thing.
Perhaps with the aim of preventing criticism, just after Xinhua, China’s official news agency, announced the proposal in a bland 35-word statement, the Global Times, an influential relative of the People’s Daily, published its editorial, stating that “the change does not mean the Chinese president will have a lifelong tenure.”
Faced with an increasingly widespread backlash from both outside and inside China, the People’s Daily, the Communist Party of China’s flagship paper, on Thursday issued the same statement.
Yet, it’s hardly convincing. These two papers and other state-run outlets, such as the China Daily, have argued that the amendment corresponds to a “new era” in which the country is implementing “Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics,” whose ultimate goal is to make China “a great modern socialist country” by the mid-21st century.
This means the constitution is being forcibly changed to allow Xi to oversee his grand vision. Should he be determined to stay in power to see through the first stage of such a plan by 2035 or the second stage by 2050, he would rule the country for 23 years or 38 years. By then, he will be 82 or 97, respectively.
Admittedly, coupled with many other developments in China since he took power in 2012, the removal of the 10-year presidential limit indicates that Xi is willing to do whatever is necessary to reign supreme over the Asian power for a long time.
The party’s mouthpieces, including the three above-mentioned publications, editorialized that the amendment is vital because it will “improve” and even “perfect” the country’s leadership.
However, as exemplified by numerous past and current cases, including China under Mao Zedong – who founded the PRC in 1947 and ruled it with an iron fist until his death in 1976, at the age of 83 – and North Korea under a tyrannical and hereditary regime, quite the contrary is true.
Under Mao’s 27-year tenure, the Asian nation suffered many calamities, including the Great Leap Forward that led to the Great Famine and the disastrous Cultural Revolution. According to some estimations, the Great Famine killed up to 45 million people.
For his propagandists, Xi is a virtuous, sagacious and omnipotent man, “who makes things happen” and for some outside watchers, he “is not an impulsive, hot-headed, or irrational leader.” Consequently, there is no way for him to act in such a despotic, idiotic and destructive manner.
It’s still unlikely – God forbid – that he will become another Mao or “a Kim Jong-un.”
That said, as Li Datong, who circulated the open letter, rightly asserted, by abolishing the two-term limit, China is “planting the seed once again of chaos.” The key reason why Mao, Kim and other dictators rule badly or catastrophically is that not only does absolute power corrupt absolutely and demoralizes as a 19th-century British politician put it, but also an absolute ruler tends to act blindly and uncontrollably.
In fact, in an effort to prevent China from producing another Mao and returning to Mao’s turbulent era, Deng Xiaoping, the reformist leader who transformed the backward and poor country into a global economic powerhouse, introduced the two-term cap into the state constitution in 1982.
Such an institutionalized rule was followed by Jiang Zemin and especially Hu Jintao, Xi’s two immediate predecessors. This helped the authoritarian nation have some kind of checks and balances and a relatively orderly transfer of power, which, in return, hugely enabled China to maintain political stability and impressive economic growth during the past decades.
Indeed, as has been rightly noted, collective leadership – rule by consensus rather than strongman – and two-term limits are two of the most important factors that have enabled the authoritarian regime not only to survive but to thrive while others, including (dysfunctional) democracies, have failed.
In this sense, by removing the two-term limit on the presidency, Xi is, in fact, abolishing what has so far helped China prosper and adopting what once held it back. This is one of many ironies and contradictions the world is witnessing in China’s Xi Jinping.
How can he lead the PRC into becoming “a great modern socialist country that is prosperous, strong, democratic, culturally advanced, harmonious and beautiful” in a new era, when he is, in some key respects, bringing it back to the bad old days of one-man rule that still haunt many Chinese today?
Hamish Wong ……If foreign dirty history could backup arguments favorable to China, dirty Chinese history could also backup arguments favorable to forergners. Does China have dirty histories? Of course a lot. Did China bully all the 56 minority nations hundreds of years ago? Is China presently bullying the minorities nations such as the Tibetans and Uyghurs? Hundreds of years ago "bullying" must be a lot more brutal than the present. In Chinese ancient hitory, the bullying was carried out by Tu Cheng, Jiao Mie, Killing all including chickens and dogs.
Peter Seo……No China has not chosen the current system as the best system that suits itself. The choice was made Only by the communists, NOT by China. I have a picture to backup my argument:
https://i.imgur.com/LI8E7u6.jpg
presidential term is just presidential term limit, it does not predetermine or cause anything and to suggest that it does is just being biased and lazy – putin adheres to russian prez 2-term limit and has done a darn good job, american prez adhere to their 2-term limit and had plunged the world into endless suffering … it depends entirely on the person sitting in the big chair – his/her ability, vision and commitment just like what Ralph Jason Regudo below says "with all his accomplishment and the leadership qualities he has shown so far, Xi’s term extension makes perfect sense." …
We have seen Bully England threw its weight around to forced feed China with opium in exchange for silver. We have seen Bully England threw its weight around in colonizing nearly half of East Asia for natural resources and slave labor. We have seen Bully England threw its weight around and grabbed Malvinas, 8,000 miles from England. We have seen Bully England threw its weight around and imposed tax on tea in the Americas. We have seen Bully USA threw its weight around and colonized the Philippines. We have seen Bully USA threw its weight around and dictated affairs in the Middle east with war and destructions. We have recently seen Bully Australia threw weight around and dictated terms on Timor Leste for resources near Timor. I guess you are too young as yet, my friend, but please be informed that world peace has always been on the edge.
My early life was in Hong Kong, and as a young child, I was taken on board HMS Amethyst, that the Chinese attempted to sink on the Yangtse River.
In my adult life, I have also worked with the Chinese Government to prevent an Economic meltdown in the early 90s.
China is unchanged. Definitively China First Policies are at the core of their administration.
The last decade has seen China throw its weight around as the Bully of the South China Seas.
America, in the hands of Donald Trump has made it totally clear that Massive Trade imbalances are totally unacceptable. China shows America the finger.
A very dangerous response for World Peace.
The writer is talking a lot of nonsense, as if he can predict the future. We have seen how democracy has more then its share of chaos and drawbacks, so much so that a nation becomes ungovernable. There is no one best system in the world. We just get by on what is good for us. China has chosen a system that best suit itself.
"China’s main news outlets have come out to support and justify the ruling Communist Party’s stunning decision to change the country’s constitution to remove the 10-year limit on the presidency".
Last I checked, China did not have a presidency. Nor did it ever have term limits on its most influential officer, the Party Chairman who, at present, is Xi Jinping.
A little background might quieten the heavy breathing. America has term limits for the same reason the Chinese do: both countries’ governing elites found that their most capable leaders–Roosevelt and Mao–were sympathetic to ordinary citizens–who returned their affections.
There are no ‘term limits’ in the CCP. The most-quoted rule of thumb for membership in the seven-man Politburo Standing Committee, the top collective leadership group from which General Secretaries are selected, is ‘seven up/eight down’: cadres up to 67 years can advance to the PSC and become general secretary and must otherwise retire: Deng Xiaoping creatively interpretated this principle of leadership renewal to get rid of his rival/nuisance at the time, 68-year-old Li Ruihuan.
Deng then selected (or pre-positioned) every General Secretary prior to Xi–including Hu Jintao, who became general secretary in 2002, fifteen years after Deng died. But, though he was a close and loyal friend of Xi’s father, Deng did not select Xi, who will be 68 on June 15, 2021, a year before his second term ends.
Xi must do a double job. Looking back, he must fulfill the goals Deng set in 1980: complete the Reform and Opening program–a 40-year overhaul of China’s economy–by 2020. Looking forward, he must ensure–as Deng did–that he formulates and launches the next 40-year program auspiciously, especially since it will be a return to China’s socialist roots.
Xi never needed to ‘consolidate power’ nor has he needed to add to his Constitutional power since his accession. He was born famous, to one of China’s most beloved and admired men, his first job out of college was Assistant to the Secretary of Defense. He laid down a stellar, 25-year governance record, has always been famously honest (Lee Kwan Yew called him, "China’s Nelson Mandela" and immensely competent.
Xi’s doing a stellar job, which make keeping him on a no-brainer: In his first term he raised all wages and pensions by 50%, made corruption unprofitable, made China militarily impregnable and launched the Belt and Road Initiative, among many other accomplishments.
According to a recent World Values Survey, 96% of Chinese expressed confidence in their government (compared to 37% of Americans). Likewise, 83% of Chinese think their country is run for everyone’s benefit rather than for a few big interest groups (36% of Americans thought the same). http://www.wvsevsdb.com/wvs/WVSData.jsp?Idioma=I+(http://www.wvsevsdb.com/wvs/WVSData.jsp?Idioma=I)
And according to the Edelman 2016 Report, 80–90% of Chinese trust their government, the highest trust level of any national government. https://www.slideshare.net/EdelmanAPAC/2016-edelman-trust-barometer-china-english?qid=c13f229d-8a8f-4a93-bce8-aeb779e8cc70&v=&b=&from_search=1 .
According to the Pew Charitable Trusts, “Nine in ten Chinese are happy with the direction of their country (87%), feel good about the current state of their economy (91%) and are optimistic about
On the contrary, with all his accomplishment and the leadership qualities he has shown so far, Xi’s term extension makes perfect sense. It is difficult for any country or race to find a leader of such caliber and yet you want to limit his term. That is idiotic. The west is afraid of what China might become under Xi’s leadership. That is the main point of this article.