Historic vote in China will let president rule for life

BEIJING — Xi Jinping, already China’s most powerful leader since Mao Zedong, received a vastly expanded mandate Sunday as lawmakers abolished presidential term limits that have been in place for more than 35 years and wrote his political philosophy into the country’s constitution.

In one swift vote, the rubber-stamp legislature opened up the possibility of Xi serving as president for life, returning China to the oneman-rule system that prevailed during the era of Mao and the emperors who came before him.

The package of constitutional amendments passed the nearly 3,000-member National People’s Congress almost unanimously, with just two opposing votes and three abstentions. The vote further underscored the total dominance of Chinese politics possessed by the 64-year-old Xi, who serves simultaneously as the head of state, leader of the ruling Communist Party and commander of the powerful 1 million-member armed forces.

The move upends a system enacted by former Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping in 1982 to prevent a return to the bloody excesses of a lifelong dictatorship typified by Mao’s chaotic 1966-1976 Cultural Revolution.

“This marks the biggest regression in China’s legal system since the reform and opening-up era of the 1980s,” said Zhang Lifan, an independent Beijing-based political commentator.

“I’m afraid that this will all be written into our history in the future,” Zhang said.

The change is widely seen as the culmination of Xi’s efforts since being appointed leader of the party in 2012 to concentrate power in his own hands and defy norms of collective leadership established over the past two decades. Xi has appointed himself to head bodies that oversee national security, finance, economic reform and other major initiatives, effectively sidelining the Communist Party’s No. 2 figure, Premier Li Keqiang.

In addition to scrapping the limitation that presidents can serve only two consecutive terms, the amendments also inserted Xi’s personal political philosophy into the preamble of the constitution, along with phrasing that emphasizes the party’s leadership.

“It is rare nowadays to see a country with a constitution that emphasizes the constitutional position of any one political party,” Zhang said.

Voting among the legislature’s hand-picked delegates began in the mid-afternoon, with Xi leading members of the party’s sevenmember all-powerful Politburo Standing Committee in casting their ballots on a stage inside a cavernous hall.