Xi Jinping set to rule China for life as term limit abolished

PRESIDENT Xi Jinping was given the go-ahead yesterday to rule China for life.

The country’s parliament voted overwhelmingly to abolish the 35-year-old law limiting leaders to two consecutive terms in power.

The decision represents a leap back in time, reversing the system of ‘collective leadership’ introduced following the bloody dictatorship of Mao Zedong. It elevates President Xi to the same position enjoyed by Chairman Mao, the founder of the Chinese Communist Party.

The National People’s Congress backed the constitutional amendment yesterday by voting 2,958 in favour, with only two voting against and three abstaining.

President Xi led the way by placing his orange ballot paper in a red box bearing the official seal of state in the massive congress hall. Rank and file deputies then rose to vote.

The process took just ten minutes. The slide towards one-man rule fuels concerns about a return to the excesses of autocratic leadership.

In contrast to the years of Chairman Mao’s rule, modern China has become a global economic powerhouse, with many of the Western world’s goods being manufactured in its factories.

President Xi’s confident leadership style and tough attitude towards corruption has won him popular support.

Now aged 64, he is married to Chinese soprano Peng Liyuan, 55, with whom he has one daughter.

He was appointed leader of the Chinese Communist Party in 2012 and has moved to concentrate power in his own hands, rather than maintain a ‘collective leadership’ system, ever since.

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

President Xi has appointed himself to head bodies that oversee national security, finance, economic reform and other major initiatives, effectively sidelining the party’s No2 figure, Premier Li Keqiang.