Xi Jinping towards a third term in China
Audio 02:23
Chinese President Xi Jinping arrives for the opening session of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, China on March 4, 2021. REUTERS - CARLOS GARCIA RAWLINS
By: Stéphane Lagarde Follow
6 mins
The annual session of the National People's Congress concluded this week, Thursday, March 11, with measures intended to make China the leading economic power by 2035. A way also to prepare the ground for a third mandate for President Xi Jinping.
Publicity
There is the name of the Chinese president who comes up regularly in speeches.
In that of the Prime Minister, there are also signs that do not deceive like his two cups put in front of Xi Jinping
during the plenary session of the National People's Congress.
Two cups to one for other politburo members to keep tea still hot after ten years in office and room for re-election of President Xi to Congress in 2022. "Plenumologists" read tea leaves, or just simply state media.
Xi Jinping certainly does not have the little red book, but he is more present in the People's Daily than Mao was in his time.
"
This shows that the president considers himself the savior of the Chinese Communist Party, which he found, on his arrival, totally plagued by corruption and the ineffectiveness of local officials,
" according to Christian Göbel, a specialist in modern China at East Asia Department of the University of Vienna.
“
By showing him so often on the front page, it reinforces the power he has focused on himself, especially through the various committees he has set up.
"
Commissions under control
Commission for Reform, Finance, Defense ... With each time relatives in charge, this last straight line before the 20th Congress also coincides with the centenary of the Party.
An anniversary which will be celebrated with fanfare next July with the current president at the heart of the commemorations.
"
Everything is being done to pave the way for the president's third term
," said Wu Qiang, political analyst and former professor at Tsinghua University.
"
There is, for me, no doubt that he will stay.
The goal now is to give the 20th Congress next year the significance of the 7th Congress which had shaped Mao's absolute leadership, and thus to strengthen Xi's power towards a third constituency, if not longer
.
"
"Xi emperor for life"
For the moment this extension of the presidency is still only speculation.
Nothing official because Xi Jinping did not only make friends inside the Party, not to mention the other challenges.
“
Xi Jinping intends to revitalize the party and even bring it back to its roots,
underlines Christian Göbel.
It's a complicated transition because it goes against many interests.
On top of that, there is an environment that is increasingly hostile to China, in part because the Chinese leadership has provoked this hostility.
"
A hostility to which the Chinese leaders oppose an apparent serenity as for their durability: "
T
he hundred years of the Party,
thus affirms the Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi,
are only the preamble of a great millenary work.
"
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