Xi poised to make grab at indefinite rule
BEIJING — President Xi Jinping was poised to make a historic power grab as China’s legislators began gathering Monday to approve changes that will let him rule indefinitely and undo decades of efforts to prevent a return to crushing dictatorship.
Chinese leaders were setting a robust annual economic growth target and ambitious high-tech development goals Monday, but this year’s gathering of the ceremonial National People’s Congress remained overshadowed by Mr. Xi’s surprise move — announced just a week ago — to end constitutional two-term limits on the presidency.
The changes expected to be made at this NPC session — usually used to showcase economic plans — would allow Mr. Xi, already China’s most powerful leader in decades, to extend his rule over the world’s second-largest economy possibly for life.
“This is a critical moment in China’s history,” said Cheng Li, an expert on elite China politics at the Brookings Institution in Washington.
The moveto make Mr. Xi “president for life,” as U.S. President Donald Trump put it Saturday, is widely seen as the culmination of the 64year-old’s efforts since being appointed leader of the ruling Communist Party in 2012 to concentrate power in his own hands and defy norms of collective leadership established overthe past two decades. Mr.Xi has appointed himself to head bodies that oversee national security, finance, economicreform and other major initiatives, effectively sidelining the party’s No. 2 figure, Premier Li Keqiang.
Once passed, the constitutional amendment would upend 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 Zedong’s chaotic 1966-1976 Cultural Revolution.
Merkel nears fourth term
BERLIN— Germany ended months of political uncertainty Sunday when Chancellor Angela Merkel gained the support needed to preserve her governing coalition and secure a fourth term as leader of Europe’s most powerful economy.
The center-left Social Democrats voted overwhelmingly to remain in a so-called “grand coalition” — the relatively drama-free but entirely loveless marriage of convenience between Germany’s traditionally dominant parties that governed for the previous four years — with Ms. Merkel’s conservative bloc,
The vote came after difficult and drawn-out negotiations triggered by September’s elections, which saw the rise of a new right-wing force in German politics and raised questions about Ms. Merkel’s future.
Parliament is expected to meet March 14 to re-elect Ms. Merkel as chancellor, ending the longest time Germany has been without a new government after elections in its postwar history.
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