DAILY MAIL
Xi Jinping is handed historic third term as Chinese president after enacting new law that’ll let him rule for life
- Jinping, 69, was unanimously elected as President for a third term on Friday
- The appointment by China’s rubber-stamp parliament comes after Xi locked in another five years as head of the Communist Party and the military
Xi Jinping was handed a third term as Chinese president on Friday, capping a rise that has seen him become the country’s most powerful leader in generations.
The appointment by China‘s rubber-stamp parliament comes after Xi locked in another five years as head of the Communist Party and the military – the two more significant leadership positions in Chinese politics – in October.
Since then, 69-year-old Xi has weathered widespread protests over his zero-Covid policy and its subsequent abandonment that saw countless people die.
Those issues have been avoided at this week’s National People’s Congress, a carefully choreographed event that is also set to appoint Xi ally Li Qiang as the new premier.
And on Friday they handed Xi a third term as China’s President – the culmination of a remarkable rise in which he has gone from a relatively little-known party apparatchik to the leader of a global superpower.
His coronation sets him up to become modern China’s longest-serving president, and will mean Xi will rule well into his seventies – if no challenger emerges.
Adrian Geiges, co-author of ‘Xi Jinping: The Most Powerful Man in the World’, told AFP he did not think Xi was motivated by a desire for personal enrichment, despite international media investigations having revealed his family’s amassed wealth.
‘That’s not his interest,’ Geiges said.
‘He really has a vision about China, he wants to see China as the most powerful country in the world.’
For decades China – scarred by the dictatorial reign and cult of personality of founding leader Mao Zedong – eschewed one-man rule in favor of a more consensus-based, but still autocratic, leadership.
That model imposed term limits on the largely ceremonial role of the presidency, with Xi’s predecessors Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao relinquishing power after 10 years in office.
