Xi Jinping’s third term has begun

The National People’s Congress of the People’s Republic of China formally confirmed Xi Jinping as the country’s president, officially starting his third term at the helm of China. The vote is breakthrough Friday in Beijing and it was a formality: it had already been known for some time that Xi would receive the renewal of his office, which interrupts the tradition of two consecutive presidential terms for the same person. Xi, who is 69 years old, had had the Chinese Constitution changed precisely to guarantee the possibility of maintaining his position by further strengthening his already enormous power in China.

There were supporters of Xi’s new mandate 2,952 votes, while nobody voted against. Delegates participating in the vote are designated by the Communist Party of China, de facto the main administrative body of the country. Participants were not offered a list of potential candidates, as a result Xi and some other party leaders were elected with no opponents. The various stages of the vote are secret, they have ratified decisions already taken and, as per tradition, not many details have been disclosed.

Last October, Xi had formalized his appointment as general secretary of the party, causing many analysts to assume that he intends to become de facto head of China for life. Also thanks to propaganda activities and control of the media, Xi is particularly popular in the country, although in the last year of the coronavirus pandemic he had received criticism and there had been protests for the strict contagion containment measures, applied with the so-called “zero COVID” strategy.

The Assembly unanimously named Xi as the commander of the People’s Liberation Army, China’s armed forces, one of the largest militaries in the world. The delegates also indicated the important official Zhao Leji as president of the Assembly, also in this case on the recommendation of Xi, who had appreciated his commitment in the various anti-corruption campaigns conducted in the country. A number of other officials closely tied to Xi have assumed new senior roles on the Politburo Standing Committee, confirming the president’s near-total political control.

Li Qiang, 63, replaces Li Keqiang, who is about to turn 68, the age at which Chinese politicians conventionally retire. Li Keqiang, in office for ten years, had positions quite distant from those of Xi Jinping on some issues, especially of an economic nature: his replacement, who has no experience in the central government, is instead very aligned with the president’s positions.

Li Qiang had been party leader in Shanghai, the city where last April there were large and participatory protests against the government due to the very harsh restrictions imposed (precisely through his authority) for the coronavirus. The new prime minister had been heavily criticized for his handling of that lockdown, but his October appointment to the Standing Committee had indicated that close relations with Xi had prevailed over other assessments.

A few days ago, outgoing premier Li Keqiang announced a plan to revitalize the Chinese economy, setting a forecast for gross domestic product (GDP) growth of around 5 percent. Also due to the repeated lockdowns for the COVID, China had missed the forecasts for 2022. Last year, GDP growth stopped at 3 percent, a 40-year low and well below the estimates of 5.5 percent. After the sudden abandonment of the “zero COVID” strategy, which in addition to rigid lockdowns envisaged mass tests to try to minimize the spread of infections, the economic signals seem to have returned positive, but it will still take a few months to verify the extent of the recovery.

The confirmation of Xi Jinping for a third term was anticipated by some unusual declarations by China against the United States and all of the West.

Xi had directly accused the United States and all of the West of wanting to impede China’s economic development with a campaign of “containment” against it: it is rare for a Chinese president to explicitly indicate a foreign country with accusations of this type, preferring to usually use rather vague references. Even the Chinese Foreign Minister, Qin Gang, had made very aggressive statements against the United States, accusing them of wanting direct confrontation with China: positions seen as a sign of the fact that China’s rhetoric against the West is gradually becoming more lasts, coinciding with the start of Xi’s third term as president.