The Communist Party of China (PCC) will open its 20th Congress on October 16, which should allow President Xi Jinping to obtain an unprecedented third term as head of the Asian power.
The date of the Congress, which is held every five years, was announced on Tuesday by official Chinese media.
At the last congress in 2017, the CCP included Xi Jinping’s “thought” on “socialism with Chinese characteristics” in its statutes.
A rank that places Xi, general secretary of the PCC since 2012, on the podium of the founders of the regime, along with Mao Zedong (1893-1976) and Deng Xiaoping (1904-1997).
A few months later, China amended its Constitution to eliminate the limit of two presidential terms, exercised in recent decades by the same leader who holds the position of general secretary of the CCP.
An amendment that opens the way for Xi, 69, to remain at the head of the People’s Republic for life.
The October Congress should also lead to a major reshuffle of the standing committee of the Political Bureau, the powerful seven-member body that holds the real power in China.
According to an unwritten tradition, some of the current members of this body are reaching the age when they should retire.
The PCC Congress, in which 2,300 delegates will participate, will be held at “a key moment in which the entire Party and the country’s ethnic groups are committed to building a modern socialist country,” state broadcaster CCTV said.
Although the regime wants to give an image of unity, there are many rivalries behind the scenes and the president continues to try to consolidate his power, analysts say.
– Challenges –
Since Xi Jinping became the strongman of the world’s second-largest economy in 2012, more than 1.5 million officials have been sanctioned in a massive crackdown on corruption, according to official data.
Observers point out that this campaign served Xi to get rid of opponents within the CCP.
The Party continues to base its legitimacy on improving the purchasing power of the population, but the October Congress comes in a context of strong economic slowdown, with a sharp increase in unemployment (almost 20%) among young people between 16 and 24 years old .
The “zero covid” policy, defended tooth and nail by Xi, is also increasingly criticized by public opinion and especially by business circles, alarmed by the threats posed by confinements and the stoppage of economic activity.
Authorities are imposing localized lockdowns, requiring PCR tests every 72 to 48 hours in some places, and threatening travelers from quarantined regions when they move to another province.
At the international level, the points of contention between Xi Jinping’s China and its great rival, the United States, have multiplied: trade and technology, the treatment of the Uyghur minority in Xinjiang, the repression in Hong Kong and the tensions in around Taiwan.
At the beginning of August, China carried out military maneuvers of an unprecedented magnitude near the island, of which Beijing claims sovereignty.
The maneuvers were a message of firmness to Washington after the visit to Taiwan of Nancy Pelosi – president of the United States House of Representatives and the third most important figure in the country’s administration -, considered by Beijing as a provocation. YS
