As senior leaders of China’s all-powerful Communist Party gather this week in Beijing, it seems that President Xi Jinping is setting the groundwork for a third term in office.
Chinese state media said that President Xi Jinping and General Secretary of the Communist Party of China released a draught resolution on the party’s “important accomplishments and historical experience” at the Central Committee’s plenary session, which began on Monday.
It will be the Chinese Communist Party’s third significant declaration in its 100-year history, according to scholars, and will strengthen Xi’s position as a peer of the country’s founder, Mao Zedong, and his successor, Deng Xiaoping, who led critical economic reforms.
In 2018, China abolished term limits for the president, thereby ensuring that Xi would remain at the pinnacle of power for the rest of his life. He is anticipated to be reappointed as party head at next year’s entire party congress, which is held every five years and is subject to a very opaque selection procedure.
The Central Committee’s meeting, which will take place this week and extend through Thursday, is expected to conclude with the release of a communiqué after the conclusion of the last session.
Because Xi has already revealed his thinking through his public pronouncements, Yang Yang, a professor at the School of Political Science and Public Administration under the China University of Political Science and Law, believes the statement on party history will not be surprising. “Xi has already revealed his thinking through his public pronouncements,” Yang Yang said.
According to Yang, the text would primarily chronicle China’s emancipation from foreign dominance, its economic rise, and its emergence as a global power.
According to Yang, the event would “highlight a new era for the government of the Communist Party under Xi’s leadership, and that will establish the framework for Xi to equal Mao and Deng, as well as lay the platform for Xi to continue to rule for the next term.”
The Communist Party has published two previous evaluations of its history: one in 1945, as it was preparing to seize power from Chiang Kai-Nationalists shek’s four years later, and another in 1981, when Deng led an assessment of Mao Zedong’s tumultuous 1966-76 Cultural Revolution, which took place between 1966 and 1976.
In all instances, the party worked to reconcile internal divisions and restore unity among its members.
In the decade since he assumed the leadership of the Communist Party, Xi has entrenched power by ensuring a stable economy, an aggressive foreign policy, a significant upgrade of the military, and a continuing crackdown on corruption that has entangled both active and retired high-ranking officials.
However, religious organisations and human rights advocates have been ruthlessly suppressed, with more than a million members of Muslim minority groups being subjected to mass detentions and political indoctrination as a result of the crackdown.
Freedom of expression and opposition politics have also been severely curbed in Hong Kong, a semi-autonomous southern metropolis, and military threats have been increased towards the self-governing island of Taiwan.
China claims that the actions are required in order to maintain stability and national independence.
