On Friday, Xi Jinping was elected for a third term as president of China, capping a rise that has made him the nation’s most powerful person in years.
After Xi’s agreement in October to serve another five years as leader of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), the appointment was approved by China’s rubber-stamp parliament.
Since then, the 69-year-old Xi has endured intense opposition to his zero-Covid policy as well as the untold number of fatalities that resulted from its abandonment.
At this week’s National People’s Congress (NPC), a carefully orchestrated ceremony that will also name Xi’s friend Li Qiang as the new premier, those topics have been skirted.
Xi was officially appointed to a third term as president of China and to the position of chairman of the Central Military Commission on Friday.
For the historic vote, the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, a huge state structure on the edge of Tiananmen Square, was decorated with red carpets and banners. A military band played background music.
All 2,952 votes had been cast in favor of giving Xi another term in power, according to the final results, which were displayed on a digital monitor at the edge of the stage.
Following the news, delegates fervently pledged their commitment to the Chinese constitution as a sign of loyalty and consensus.
Xi placed his left hand on a red leather copy of China’s constitution while raising his right fist.
“I swear to be loyal to the constitution of the People’s Republic of China, to uphold the authority of the constitution, to perform my statutory obligations, to be loyal to the motherland, to be loyal to the people,” he said, promising to fulfill his duties with honesty and hard work.
In the oath — beamed live on state television across the nation — he vowed to “build a prosperous, strong, democratic, civilized, harmonious and great modern socialist country”.
In a tweet today, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif conveyed his “heartiest felicitations” to the neighboring country’s president.
He said, “This [re-election] is a reflection of the trust reposed by the CPC (Communist Party of China) and 1.4 billion Chinese people in his statesmanship.”
The premier added, “I’m confident that China-Pakistan ties will flourish further under his (Xi’s) sagacious leadership.”
Remarkable rise
The result of Xi’s remarkable rise from a relatively unknown party apparatchik to the head of an emerging global power was his re-election.
If no challenger steps forward, Xi will have a good chance of becoming communist China’s longest-serving president thanks to his coronation.
Despite worldwide media investigations exposing his family’s accumulated wealth, Adrian Geiges, co-author of “Xi Jinping: The Most Powerful Man in the World,” told AFP that he did not believe Xi was motivated by a desire for personal enrichment.
Geiges remarked, “That’s not his interest. He genuinely believes that China can become the most powerful nation in the world.
Tearing up the rulebook
China, which was influenced by the authoritarian government of its founding leader Mao Zedong and his cult of personality, shunned one-man rule for many years in favour of a more consensus-based, albeit nonetheless autocratic, form of government.
In accordance with that model, the presidency’s mostly ceremonial duties were subject to term restrictions; Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao, Xi’s predecessors, left office after serving 10 years.
China makes historic move to allow Xi to rule indefinitely
By removing term limits in 2018 and allowing a cult of personality to support his all-powerful leadership, Xi tore up that rulebook.
Yet, the start of his unusual third term coincides with significant economic challenges facing the world’s second-largest economy, from sluggish growth and a shaky real estate sector to a dropping birth rate.
Relations with the United States are also at an all-time low, with the two countries fighting over everything from trade to technology to human rights.
“We will see a China more assertive on the global stage, insisting its narrative be accepted,” Steve Tsang, director of the SOAS China Institute, told AFP.
“But it is also one that will focus on domestically making it less dependent on the rest of the world, and making the Communist Party the centerpiece of governance, rather than the Chinese government,” he said.
“It is not a return to the Maoist era, but one that Maoists will feel comfortable in,” Tsang added. “Not a direction of travel that is good for the rest of the world.”
