The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has put forward a constitutional amendment that would remove the two-term limit for the presidency and vice presidency, effectively clearing the way for President Xi Jinping to remain in office for an indefinite period.
Though hardly surprising given the policy arc of the Xi era, the importance of the announcement cannot be overstated. It marks a turning point in China’s political development, a decisive pivot away from the façade of liberalism and a step toward one-man rule. The shift will reverberate in the domestic sphere, as President Xi’s centralization of Party control is now set to continue and even intensify. There will also be ramifications for China’s foreign policy, as centralizing the decision-making process into one individual dramatically increases the odds of miscalculation. Finally, the move sounds the death knell for wishful thinking in the West that China will inevitably liberalize from within, and this realization will lead to a new bout of soul-searching on how best to respond to China’s rise as a global power.
Impact
China watchers saw this coming. The elimination of presidential term limits in and of itself is not surprising; if anything, the move came sooner than expected. President Xi’s first term has been marked by a series of norm-busting power plays: he took down “tigers” like Bo Xilai and former standing committee member Zhou Yongkang; he kept the “flies” in check with a sweeping anti-corruption campaign (or purge); he tightened Party control at all levels of society, reducing what little space remained for civic debate; and most tellingly he did not signal a heir apparent at the 19th Party Congress last year. One can view his first term as simply setting the table for the indefinite extension of his rule by decimating competing power blocs within the Party. Now President Xi has finally shown his hand by proposing the end of term limits, but there’s no one left that’s powerful enough to oppose him.
The legitimacy of power. The Chinese political system is in many ways an illiberal sham: there are laws, but no independent courts to enforce them, and the constitution can be freely amended or ignored by the very Party it’s supposed to constrain. However, this façade of liberalism is still important, especially given the legacy of Cultural Revolution and Deng Xiaoping’s attempts to ensure that the disaster of Mao’s one-man rule would never be repeated. Put simply, the façade of liberalism – the idea that the Party is bound by rules, norms, and other mechanisms – supports the legitimacy of the Party in the eyes of the Chinese people. Without it, the Party will have to look elsewhere to justify its monopoly on political power. Every indication points to the fact that it will do so by leaning on ethno nationalism and presenting itself as the legitimate guardian of the Han’s ancient cultural legacy. We can increasingly expect the Party to act the part in the foreign policy realm, where it will need to constantly demonstrate China’s expanding power and, by extension, the legitimacy of CCP rule. Under these conditions, matters of ‘national dignity’ take on an almost existential significance for the CCP, which increases the potential for conflict along various regional fault lines like the South China Sea, the Senkaku Islands, and Taiwan.
