Xi Jinping will get an unprecedented third term as president of China

Xi Jinping will win a historic third term as China’s president on Friday after a formal vote by the legislative body of the country that will ratify its status as most powerful leader in decades.

Since the parliament in China is in practice subjugated to the Communist Party (CCP), the result of the vote that must be carried out on Friday morning does not raise doubts.

The 69-year-old leader He already obtained a new five-year term as head of the CCP and the military commission in Octoberthe two most important positions of power in the Chinese system.

The only candidate for the position, he will be re-elected for the same period as head of state, a position he has held since 2013.

The last few months have been difficult for Xi, with big demonstrations end of november against his “zero covid” policy and a wave of deaths after the abandonment of this strategy in December.

These sensitive issues were dodged during the annual session of Parliament, a carefully choreographed event in which Xi’s ally Li Qiang is expected to replace Li Keqiang as prime minister.

The National People’s Congress (NPC) meeting in Beijing must also formally elect a new vice president to replace Wang Qishan.

The deputies concentrated in these days on an institutional reform project that aims to strengthen the Ministry of Science and Technology and China’s capabilities in the digital sector.

Xi established developing these sectors as a priority in search of self-sufficiency for China in the face of what Beijing sees as a “containment” policy from the West to hinder its development.

– Cult of personality –

The APN annual session was also the occasion to announce a goal of modest growth of “around 5%” in 2023 and an increase in the military budget.

Xi’s formal re-election as head of state heralds a remarkable political rise for a once little-known policymaker who has become the most powerful Chinese leader in decades.

Author of a biography on the president, the Swiss writer and journalist Adrian Geiges believes that Xi “really has a vision of China.”

“He wants China to become the most powerful country in the world,” he told AFP.

For decades, the People’s Republic of China, scalded by political chaos and personality cult during the reign of its leader and founder Mao Zedong (1949-1976), promoted a more collegial system of government in the upper echelons of power.

Under this model, Xi’s predecessors (Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao) left the presidency after ten years in office.

But Xi ended this rule by abolishing the constitutional limit of two presidential terms in 2018.while nurturing a budding personality cult.

– ‘Containment, siege and repression’ –

Xi Jinping will thus become the leader with the longest years in power in the recent history of the Asian giant.

Well into his 70s when his third term ends, he could even aim for another five years as president if no credible successor emerges in this time.

But the second world economyHe faces numerous challenges ahead: slowing growth, falling birth rates, difficulties in the real estate sector or a weighed down international image.

Relations with the United States are at their lowest point in decades, with multiple disputes ranging from the status of Taiwan to the treatment of the Uyghur Muslim minority and technological rivalry.

Xi this week denounced the “policy of containment, encirclement and suppression against China” pursued by the “US-led Western countries” that “has brought unprecedented severe challenges to the development” of the country.