Crowning an Emperor: China Abolishes Term Limits for Xi Jinping

Emperor Xi courtesy of the
Economist

Today (2/25/2018), news broke that China would abolish term limits for the "President" and "Vice-President" of the nation.  The amendment to China's Constitution will remove a clause that limits the terms of the President and Vice-President to two consecutive terms.  This is huge news for two reasons.  First, the change effectively makes it easier for Xi Jinping to remain in power past 2023.  Something already expected to happen.  Second, it marks a titanic shift in policy for the communist party and the nation.  Term limits for Chinese leaders became the norm after the death of Mao Zedong in 1976.  Now, China has jumped into the abyss by muddying the waters of its already murky leadership succession process.       

For a regime that prizes stability uber alles, allowing a 64-year-old man to rule until his death doesn't sound like a good policy decision.  Famously, the Chinese Communist Party has an obsession with the collapse of the Soviet Union.  Many argue that the instability caused by the Soviet Union's rapid succession of leaders in the early and mid-1980's caused the collapse of the country.  It is possible that the term limits in China sought to prevent similar issues to those caused by the cascading deaths of Brezhnev, Andropov, and Chernenko.  Like many in the former Soviet Union, the Chinese leadership has an abysmal opinion of the Soviet Union's final leader Mikhail Gorbachev.  In a famous quote attributed to Xi Jinping, Xi said that the Soviet Union collapsed because no one was man enough to stand up and defend it.  Ironically, China’s constitutional change risks placing the country in a similar situation to the Soviet Union in the early 1980’s. 

         

Thus far, the earth-shattering news hasn't received much attention in China.  Even the foreign language divisions of China's state-owned news outlets haven't directly addressed the news.  Xinhua buried the lead deep on a page of pending constitutional amendments (see link below).  However, many Hong Kong news outlets, such as the South China Morning Post, ran the news on the front page of their websites.  Regardless of how little ink the constitutional change receives in China, it will fundamental alter the trajectory of China and the world.   

http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2018-02/25/c_136999410.htm