The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has proposed scrapping term limits for the country’s president, Xinhua news agency said yesterday, appearing to lay the groundwork for CCP General Secretary Xi Jinping (習近平) to remain as president beyond 2023.
The CCP Central Committee proposed removing from the constitution the expression that China’s president and vice president “shall serve no more than two consecutive terms,” Xinhua said.
“Xi Jinping has finally achieved his ultimate goal when he first embarked on Chinese politics — that is to be the Mao Zedong (毛澤東) of the 21st century,” said Willy Lam (林和立), a political analyst at the Chinese University in Hong Kong.
Photo: EPA-EFE
Xi, 64, cemented his status as the most powerful Chinese leader since Mao in the 1970s at last year’s twice-a-decade CCP National Congress, where his name and a political theory attributed to him were added to the party constitution as he was given a second five-year term as general secretary.
It was the latest move by the party signaling Xi’s willingness to break with tradition and centralize power under him. Xi has taken control of an unusually wide range of political, economic and other functions, a break with the past two decades of collective leadership.
“What is happening is potentially very dangerous because the reason why Mao Zedong made one mistake after another was because China at the time was a one-man show,” Lam said. “For Xi Jinping, whatever he says is the law. There are no longer any checks and balances.”
Xi is coming to the end of his first five-year term as president and is set to be appointed to his second term at an annual meeting of the National People’s Congress that starts on Monday next week. The proposal to end term limits is likely be approved at that meeting.
Term limits on officeholders were included in the 1982 constitution, when lifetime tenure was abolished.
Political analysts said the party would likely seek to justify the proposed removal of the presidential term limit by citing Xi’s vision of establishing a prosperous, modern society by 2050.
“The theoretical justification for removing tenure limits is that China requires a visionary, capable leader to see China through this multi-decade grand plan,”’ Lam said.
“But the other aspect of it could just be Mao Zedong-like megalomania; he is just convinced that he is fit to be an emperor for life,” he said.
Beijing Institute of Technology economics professor and political commentator Hu Xingdou (胡星斗) said while Xi might need an extra five-year term or two to carry out his plans, the country is unlikely to return to an era of lifetime tenure for heads of state.
“This is beneficial to pushing forward reforms and the fight against corruption, but it’s impossible for China to have lifetime tenure again,” Hu said.
The CCP Central Committee is scheduled begin a three-day meeting in Beijing today to discuss major personnel appointments and other issues.
An Emirates flight from Dubai arrived at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport yesterday afternoon, the first service of the airline since the US and Israel launched strikes against Iran on Saturday. Flight EK366 took off from the United Arab Emirates (UAE) at 3:51am yesterday and landed at 4:02pm before taxiing to the airport’s D6 gate at Terminal 2 at 4:08pm, data from the airport and FlightAware, a global flight tracking site, showed. Of the 501 passengers on the flight, 275 were Taiwanese, including 96 group tour travelers, the data showed. Tourism Administration Deputy Director-General Huang He-ting (黃荷婷) greeted Taiwanese passengers at the airport and
POSSIBILITIES EMERGE: With Taiwan’s victory and Japan’s narrow win over Australia, Taiwan now have a chance to advance if South Korea also beat the Aussies Taiwan has high hopes that the national baseball team would advance to the World Baseball Classic (WBC) quarter-finals after clinching a crucial 5-4 victory over South Korea in a nail-biting extra-inning game at the Tokyo Dome yesterday. Boosted by three home runs — two solo shots by Yu Chang (張育成) and Cheng Tsung-che (鄭宗哲) and a two-run homer by Stuart Fairchild — the triumph gave Taiwan a much-needed second victory in the five-team Pool C, where only the top two finishers would advance to the knockout stage in Miami, Florida. Entering extra innings with the game tied at four apiece, Taiwan scored
STRAIT OF HORMUZ: In the case of a prolonged blockade by Iran, Taiwan would look to sources of LNG outside the Middle East, including Australia and the US Taiwan would not have to ration power due to a shortage of natural gas, Minister of Economic Affairs Kung Ming-hsin (龔明鑫) said yesterday, after reports that the Strait of Hormuz was closed amid the conflict in the Middle East. The government has secured liquefied natural gas (LNG) supplies for this month and contingency measures are in place if the conflict extends into next month, Kung told lawmakers. Saying that 25 percent of Taiwan’s natural gas supplies are from Qatar, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus secretary-general Lin Pei-hsiang (林沛祥) asked about the situation in light of the conflict. There would be “no problems” with
PLANE HIT: The Israeli military said it shot down an Iranian Air Force fighter over Tehran, while an Iranian warship sank off Sri Lanka, with no cause known The US and Israel yesterday hit Iran’s capital and other cities in multiple airstrikes on the fifth day of the war with Iran. Israel targeted the Iranian leadership and security forces, while the Islamic Republic responded with missile barrages and drone attacks on Israel, and across the region. Tehran residents woke to dawn blasts and Iranian state television showed the ruins of building in the center of the capital. The Shiite seminary city of Qom and multiple other cities were also targeted. With fighter jets roaring overhead, those still in Tehran looked anxiously to the skies. One man, who ran a clothing shop,
RSS