Xi Jinping is a bit more untouchable today. The Chinese president consolidated its power over him after the National People's Assembly (ANP, equivalent to a parliament) appointed him to a third five-year presidential term unprecedented among his predecessors.
Nearly 3,000 members of the Chinese parliament voted unanimously in the Great Hall of the People in favor of Xi, 69, in an election in which there were no other candidates. The plenary ratified the permanence of Xi, also general secretary of the ruling Communist Party of China (CPC), after the body approved in 2018 a constitutional amendment that eliminated the limit of two consecutive five-year terms for Chinese presidents.
In plenary, the appointments of Han Zheng as vice president and Zhao Leji as president of the Standing Committee of the ANP were also endorsed, a position that corresponds to that of head of the Legislature.
Likewise, the deputies gave the green light, also unanimously, to a third term for Xi as president of the Central Military Commission, a position that is equivalent to that of head of the Armed Forces of the Asian country. Xi has become the most powerful leader in China since Mao Zedong, who founded the People's Republic. China's presidency is largely ceremonial, and Xi's main position of power was extended last October when he was confirmed for five more years as general secretary of the Communist Party's central committee.
Thus, the control of the president over the three arms of power is reinforced: the State, the PCCh and the Army.
Xi, who has led China in a more authoritarian direction since taking over a decade ago, is expanding his tenure amid increasingly adversarial relations with Washington and the West over Taiwan, Beijing's support for Russia, trade and human rights.
Domestically, the world's second-largest economy faces a difficult recovery after three years of Xi's "zero covid" policy, fragile consumer and business confidence and weak global demand for Chinese exports. China's economy grew just 3% last year, one of its worst results in decades, and during the assembly, Beijing set a modest growth target for this year of just around 5%.
"In his third term, Xi will have to focus on economic recovery," Willy Lam, a senior fellow at the Jamestown Foundation, a US think tank, told Reuters. "But if he continues with what he has been doing, tighter party and state control over the private sector and confrontation with the West, his prospects for success will not be bright."
