Possible extended rule for Xi on China agenda
BEIJING — China’s annual parliament opened Monday with the expected show of unity, loyalty and pomp despite concerns about how long President Xi Jinping may hold power.
Nearly 3,000 handpicked delegates descended on the Great Hall of the People — a massive edifice flanking Tiananmen Square — to display their absolute allegiance to the Communist Party and its leader.
But the routine belied China’s most monumental National People’s Congress in years and perhaps its most controversial.
Chinese officials have proposed scrapping a two-term limit for the country’s president from the nation’s constitution, paving the way for Xi to rule for decades.
This could thrust the country into a new era of deepening repression and ideology — or greater uncertainty, as the idea of one-man rule, cast off in the late 1970s after decades of atrocities under Mao Zedong, returns to the fore.
“You have a political system in China in which the party’s legitimacy rests on its being able to deliver a better tomorrow than today, for its citizens,” said Steve Tsang, an expert on Chinese politics at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London. “And that just grows so much harder with Xi Jinping narrowing the scope for internal policy debate.”
Premier Li Keqiang launched the session with a near two-hour reading of his annual state of the nation address, which President Xi Jinping, left, and Premier Li Keqiang applaud at the opening session of the National People’s Congress. offered a rosy summary of the last five years under Xi. He acknowledged “formidable” challenges this year in issues such as financial risk and reducing pollution but vowed China would “rally even closer” around the party and the president.
Li predicted GDP would hit about 6.5 percent this year, keeping in line with last year’s target and making it one of the world’s strongest. Chinese officials have said growth reached 6.9 percent last year.
The government also reported Monday that China’s defense budget will grow 8.1 percent this year to about $175 billion, up from 7 percent last year. The number, still falls far below the Pentagon’s $700-billion 2018 budget.
Xi has overhauled the military in an attempt to create a streamlined, modern force able to defend its interests, including in the contested South China Sea.
“We will stick to the Chinese path in strengthening our armed forces, advance all aspects of military training and war preparedness, and firmly and resolvedly safeguard national sovereignty, security and development interests,” Li said in his report.
Officials also used the opening session to explain proposed changes to China’s constitution that carry extraordinary implications for the country’s future. The constitution was last amended in 2004.
Abolishing the term limit will “maintain the authority and strong leadership” of the party, said Wang Chen, a top leader of the Congress. Delegates and others who saw the “massive achievements” under Xi recommended the amendments, he said, to hurried applause.
Delegates, in addition to abolishing term limits, will vote to enshrine Xi’s ideological slogan — “Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era” — in the state constitution’s preamble.
Eliminating term limits “is good for the stability and prosperity of the country,” said Huang Chao, a delegate from Guangxi.
Chinese politics are notoriously opaque, and experts are sifting through vague clues to understand why a leader who already runs the Communist Party and military wants to keep the ceremonial title of president.
“When we see all this hoovering up of different titles and things, it’s always been just as easily explained as someone not feeling super secure as someone feeling powerful and strong,” said Kerry Brown, professor of Chinese studies at King’s College in London and author of a biography of Xi. “It’s as much a sign of uneasiness and weakness as strength.”