Already China’s most powerful leader in decades, Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) will probably seek to extend his term to more than 10 years, analysts say, the first Chinese Communist Party (CCP) general secretary to do so since former Chinese president Deng Xiaoping (鄧小平).
The ruling party’s leaders have reportedly gathered at their secretive annual Beidaihe retreat on the northern Chinese coast, where discussions are expected to focus on the composition of its next all-powerful Politburo Standing Committee (PSC).
The 19th party congress, slated for next year, will decide a new PSC line-up, traditionally seen as indicating Xi’s most likely successor after he steps down, due in 2022.
Photo: AP
However, Xi has thus far delayed anointing an heir. And while Chinese Communist leaders have often maintained influence after their official retirement, academics and analysts increasingly believe that Xi will try to stay in office beyond his standard term.
“A lot of analysts now see it as a given” that Xi will seek to stay party general secretary, the country’s most powerful post, said Christopher Johnson, a former CIA analyst and now China specialist at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies.
Willy Lam (林和立), expert on politics at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, said there was a 60 to 70 percent chance that Xi would refuse to give up the role.
Doing so would violate the unofficial rule set by Deng, who led China from 1978 to 1989, that general secretaries stay in office no longer than 10 years. That principle has helped smooth transfers of power within the party since the 1990s.
As well as ensuring regular renewal at the top, and opportunities for different CCP factions to dominate at different times, the concept also seeks to prevent the emergence of a despot.
China’s constitution sets term limits for presidents and ministers, but there is no such rule for the party secretary.
Analysts say if Xi’s close ally Wang Qishan (王岐山), a PSC cadre who is due to retire, is allowed a second term it could establish a precedent for the party chief.
Xi has made his enduring ambition clear by installing himself as chairman of most of the powerful new groups within the party, said Victor Shih (史宗瀚), professor at the University of California, San Diego.
Doing so “increases the threshold for anyone to replace him,” he said. “Moreover, there is no heir apparent now.”
Xi has already smashed several unwritten party rules since ascending to general secretary in 2012, Johnson said.
His anti-corruption drive felled the once hugely powerful domestic security head Zhou Yongkang (周永康), breaking the tacit understanding that former top leaders were immune to such campaigns — and giving him an incentive to stay in power.
More time as president could allow Xi to follow through on long-promised reforms and bolster his more assertive foreign policy in the South China Sea, experts say.
Xi’s allies could argue a longer term would let him pursue his ambitious targets of national rejuvenation and doubling 2010 per capita income by 2020, in time for the 100th anniversary of the party’s founding.
Xi has already reduced the strongest potential source of challenges by establishing his grip over the military and police, Lam said.
The CCP last week imposed tighter controls on the Communist Youth League, a key power base of Xi’s rivals which has produced some of the country’s top leaders, including former Chinese president Hu Jintao (胡錦濤) as well as Chinese Premier Li Keqiang (李克強).
Analysts say Xi sees an enviable model in Russian President Vladimir Putin, who has successfully kept power for well more than a decade by bouncing between the offices of president and prime minister.
“Like his good friend Putin, [Xi] wants to have more than two terms in power,” Lam said.
However, while Xi has openly admitted he admires Putin, following his example presents challenges, said Bo Zhiyue (薄智躍), professor of Chinese politics at the Victoria University of Wellington in New Zealand.
“Putin can switch his positions without losing his power, but in Chinese politics that’s not possible,” he said, adding that staying on as general secretary, but not retaining the presidency would make Xi a “less powerful leader.”
And the collapse of Russia’s own communist predecessor, the Soviet Union — something Xi sees as anathema — itself holds warnings for the Chinese leader, Shih said.
In Moscow, a series of increasingly geriatric leaders held power until their deaths, he said, which was “partly responsible for the sclerosis in late Soviet politics.”
SPEAKING OUT: After Siranudh Scott’s allegations surfaced, celebrities and public figures took to social media to share their own experiences of sexual misconduct and abuse A high-profile alleged sexual abuse case within a wealthy Thai beer brewing family has prompted a wave of painful accounts from survivors of unconnected abuse in the conservative nation. Siranudh Scott, a member of the billionaire Thai family that founded the ubiquitous Singha beer brand, posted an emotional video this month accusing his elder brother Sunit of repeatedly abusing him when he was a teenager. Sunit, who is in his 30s, later denied the allegations in a video posted online, but Singha parent Boonrawd dismissed him from his executive role with the company on Tuesday last week. “I felt I needed to speak
SEEKING ORDER: Rodrigo Paz said that ‘anyone who wants to destroy the nation will have to deal with this president and the full force of the constitution’ Bolivian President Rodrigo Paz on Wednesday said that the nation was at a “breaking point” after nearly a month of protests that have caused shortages of food, fuel and medicine. Paz, who took office six months ago amid the worst economic crisis there in four decades, is battling a groundswell of fury over his policies. The political capital, La Paz, has been besieged by low-income workers and members of the indigenous majority calling for his resignation. “The country needs order and is reaching breaking point,” the 58-year-old said at a public event in La Paz, renewing his appeal for dialogue. On Tuesday, the Bolivian
COMMUNITY CONFLICT: Concerns about disease spread from corpses has run up against friends and families’ desire to bury their dead as infection spreads in the area Angry residents of a town at the epicenter of the Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DR Congo) attacked and burned a tent that was part of a health center where people are being treated for the virus, the staff there said Saturday. It was the second such attack in the region in a week. No one was hurt in the attack, according to reports but as patients ran out to escape the fire, 18 people with suspected Ebola infections fled the facility and are unaccounted for, a hospital director said. Angry residents arrived at the clinic in the
Forecasters in Europe yesterday warned of exceptional heat as record temperatures driven by a “heat dome” push temperatures well above seasonal norms across the continent. The surge follows a record-breaking Monday, with France logging its hottest day in the month of May on record, its weather agency said, and the UK also posting unprecedented highs. A so-called “heat dome” of warm air from northern Africa trapped under a high-pressure system over western Europe is behind the high temperatures not usually seen until high summer. Restrictions on outdoor work were imposed in parts of Italy, beaches in southwest France filled earlier than usual and
RSS