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Xi Jinping’s unprecedented third term as China’s president was officially endorsed by the country’s political elite on Friday, cementing his control and making him Communist China’s longest-serving head of state since its establishment in 1949.
Xi was reappointed as president for another five years by the Chinese legislature on Friday in a ceremonial vote at Beijing’s Great Hall of the People — a highly choreographed exercise in political theater designed to demonstrate the legitimacy and unity of the ruling elite.
He received a unanimous 2,952 votes, followed by a standing ovation.
The reappointment of Xi, China’s most powerful and authoritarian leader in decades, was largely seen as a formality after the 69-year-old secured a norm-breaking third term as head of the Chinese Communist Party last fall.
In China, the presidency – or “state chairman” in Chinese – is a largely ceremonial title. Real power lies in the positions of the head of the party and the military – two key roles that Xi also holds and was reappointed at a major Communist Party congress in October.
Nevertheless, his reappointment as head of state officially completes his transition to a second decade in power.
And it comes amid a wider realignment of leadership roles in the central government, or State Council, and other state organizations that further deepens Xi’s already firm grip on the levers of power.
Li Qiang, one of Xi’s most trusted protégés, is expected to be elected prime minister of China on Saturday.
Traditionally, the premiership has been an influential role responsible for the economy, although its power has been seriously eroded over the past decade by Xi, who has taken almost all decision-making into his own hands.
On Friday, the National People’s Congress (NPC) also appointed other key state leaders, including Zhao Leji as head of the body and Han Zheng as vice president of the country.
The newly appointed leaders all took a public oath of allegiance to the Chinese constitution in the Great Hall of the People.
The NPC also approved a sweeping plan to reform institutions under the State Council, including the creation of a financial regulatory agency and a national data bureau and a revamp of its science and technology ministry.
The overhaul is seen by Xi as another step in strengthening the Communist Party’s control over key policy areas.
While Xi is firmly in power, he faces numerous challenges at home and abroad.
China’s economy struggles to recover from three years of hard zero-Covid restrictions, investor confidence is waning and a demographic crisis looms as the country records its first population decline in six decades.
China is also facing a series of diplomatic headwinds from Washington and other Western capitals as relations plummeted in recent years due to Beijing’s human rights record, military buildup, Covid handling and growing partnership with China. Russia.
In unusually direct remarks on Monday, Xi accused the US of leading a campaign to suppress China and cause its grave domestic woes.
“Western countries led by the United States have been comprehensively restraining and oppressing us, which has seriously threatened our development at an unprecedented level,” Xi told a group of government advisers representing private companies on the sidelines of the NPC meeting.
Xi has now entered new historical territory.
No Chinese leader had held the title of head of state for more than 10 years, including the founder of communist China, Chairman Mao Zedong.
Liu Shaoqi, who took over the state presidency from Mao in 1959, was fired in 1968 and persecuted to death a year later during Mao’s tumultuous Cultural Revolution.
After Mao’s death, Supreme Leader Deng Xiaoping introduced presidential term limits into China’s constitution in 1982 to prevent the kind of chaos and catastrophe that occurred under Mao’s lifelong rule.
Deng also led institutional reforms to bring greater separation of positions and functions between the party and the state.
However, those efforts were seriously undermined by Xi, who vastly expanded the party’s grip on power — and his own grip on the party.
In 2018, the Chinese legislature abolished presidential term limits in a ceremonial vote, effectively allowing Xi to rule for life.
