China’s Xi given 3rd presidential term
Putin, Kim send congratulations as leader stays on track for lifetime rule
BEIJING — Chinese leader Xi Jinping was awarded a third five-year term as the nation’s president Friday, putting him on track to stay in power for life at a time of severe economic challenges and rising tensions with the U.S. and others.
The endorsement of Xi’s appointment by the ceremonial National People’s Congress was a foregone conclusion for a leader who has sidelined potential rivals and filled the top ranks of the ruling Communist Party with his supporters since taking power in 2012.
The vote for Xi was 2,952 to 0 by the party, members of which are appointed by the ruling party.
When Xi was named to his first term as president in 2013, party members received a ballot with only his name on it and dropped it unchanged into a box. Reporters were kept at a distance Friday and couldn’t see the four ballots that each delegate deposited into boxes placed around the Great Hall of the People.
Xi was also unanimously named head of the Central Military Commission that commands the party’s military wing, the 2 million-member People’s Liberation Army.
In other voting, the party’s third-ranking official, Zhao Leji, was named head of the National People’s Congress. The vast majority of the body’s legislative work is headed by its Standing Committee, which meets yearround.
Zhao, 67, a holdover from the previous party Politburo Standing Committee that won Xi’s trust as head of the party’s Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, is pursuing an anti-graft campaign that has frozen all potential opposition to Xi.
Former Shanghai party boss and member of the last Politburo Standing Committee Han Zheng was named to the largely ceremonial post of state vice president.
Xi, Zhao and Han then took the oath of office with one hand on a copy of the Chinese Constitution. The session also swore in 14 congress vice chairpersons.
Wang Huning, a holdover from the last Politburo Standing Committee, was later named head of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, the NPC’s advisory body that, in coordination with the party’s United Front Department, works to build Xi’s influence and image abroad. Wang has been a top adviser to three Chinese leaders and has authored books critiquing Western politics and society.
While six others serve with him on the Politburo Standing Committee, all have longstanding ties to Xi and can be counted on to see to his will on issues from party discipline to economic management.
The standing committee has only men and the 24-member Politburo, which has had only four female members since the 1990s, also has no women after the departure of Vice Premier Sun Chunlan.
The former head of the manufacturing powerhouse of Guangdong province, seventh-ranked Li Xi, has already been appointed to replace Zhao as head of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection.
Separately, the Ministry of Finance announced a 7.2% budget increase in the defense budget to $224 billion, marking a slight increase over 2022. China’s military spending is the world’s second-highest after the United States.
Xi and his new Foreign Minister Qin Gang have set a highly combative tone for relations with the U.S. amid tensions over trade, technology, Taiwan, human rights and Beijing’s refusal to criticize Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Asked about China’s future foreign relations under Xi, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning struck a relatively mild tone.
Beijing maintains an “independent foreign policy of peace” and will “continue to view and develop China-U.S. relations in accordance with the principles of peaceful coexistence, mutual respect and win-win cooperation,” Mao said at a daily briefing.
“We hope the U.S. side can also meet us halfway and push China-U.S. relations back on the track of sound and stable development,” she said.
Russian President Vladimir Putin issued his congratulations, saying Xi’s new term is an “acknowledgement of your achievements as the head of state, as well as wide support of your policy focused on China’s socioeconomic development and protection of its national interests on the global stage.”
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, head of the ruling Worker’s Party, also sent congratulations, saying “the two parties and the two countries are defending and advancing socialism, the common cause, while supporting and closely cooperating with each other.”
China is the impoverished and isolated North’s most important political ally and source of food and fuel aid.