Xi Jinping and China’s eternal presidency

Xi Jinping, who is now 68, has ensured that he will remain leader of the CCP even after the 20th Party Congress in November 2022. The new resolution makes this unequivocally clear. As both president and chairman of the Central Military Commission (supreme commander of the armed forces), Xi will now call the shots in the People’s Republic until 2027.

Power is addictive. This is why, in the early 1980s, the far-sighted party leader Deng Xiaoping limited top officials to two five-year terms in office, with good reason. Until now, they had all abided by this. Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao each ruled China for 10 years – not longer. Today, things are looking different. The Communist Party has ruled China continuously since 1949, but no politician in its entire 100-year history has held as much power as Xi does right now. And China has never been as strong as it is today – politically, economically and militarily.

Xi, who came to power in 2012, never left anyone in the slightest doubt that he wanted more, and has successfully provided for this. For example, in 2017 the Politburo Standing Committee did not admit any younger CCP cadres who could have succeeded Xi in 2022, at the end of the two regular terms. That was a first. Then, in 2018, the constitution was amended at Xi’s request, abolishing the limit on the number of presidential terms. The number of years Politburo members could serve has never been limited under the CCP’s constitution. In the public perception, both at home and abroad, Xi is the guarantor of China’s rise and of its growing prosperity. After all, he was the one who proclaimed the New Silk Road initiative, which has seen China rally Asian, African and eastern European countries around itself – and, in doing so, challenge the world order that has been in place since World War II.

Xi rules the party with an iron fist. He only appoints people he trusts to important posts. If rivals do not publicly pledge allegiance to him, they are persecuted mercilessly. A delegate to the Central Committee, for example, has been absent in recent days. He has been under investigation since October for “serious violation of laws and party discipline.” Ironically, he is a former justice minister. The suspicion is that he belongs to the wrong faction within the party.

Outside the CCP, there is hardly any talk of socialist justice in accordance with the party’s mission. Instead, Xi is relying heavily on an ideologised confrontation with the United States superpower.

This is his way of seeking to defy capitalism and legitimise his own, Communist rule. In this battle of two systems, Taiwan is deployed as leverage. In 2005, the People’s Republic passed the Anti-Secession Law, which legitimised an attack on the island. The use of armed force against what Beijing sees as a breakaway province would draw the United States and its allies into an armed conflict.