China’s Xi Jinping takes on unprecedented third term as president

Delegates also endorsed his choice of outgoing Executive Vice-Premier Han Zheng as vice-president, succeeding Wang Qishan.

Xi was the lone candidate, with 2,952 delegates voting to make him head of state. No one voted against him or abstained.

After the result was announced, there was sustained applause for close to a minute. Xi bowed to the audience and shook hands with Li Zhanshu, the outgoing parliamentary chairman, and Li Qiang, who is ranked second in the Communist Party of China’s (CPC) hierarchy and is the front-runner to be premier.

The National People’s Congress (NPC), or Parliament, amended the Constitution in 2018 to scrap a two-term limit on the presidency, setting Xi up to become China’s most powerful leader since Chairman Mao Zedong.

On Friday, all the delegates also elected Xi as chairman of the state CMC, China’s military high command in charge of more than two million active personnel in the People’s Liberation Army.

Han also faced no challengers, garnering all 2,952 votes. After the result was announced, he bowed to the audience and walked over to shake hands with Xi and outgoing Vice-President Wang.

In China, the identities of candidates up for official posts are not publicly known until election day. But a harbinger of things to come may have been when Han filed into the Great Hall of the People in Beijing ahead of Wang at the opening of Parliament on Sunday.

The presidency and vice presidency are prestigious posts, but largely ceremonial. The real power lies in the hands of the general secretary of the CPC and the CMC chairman.

Han turns 69 in April and is a year younger than Xi. In the event that Xi is incapacitated or dies in office, Han would assume the presidency.

Political observers believe Han, who became the youngest mayor of Shanghai in 2003 at the age of 48, was given the vice presidency ostensibly to placate the Shanghai Gang faction that ruled China for more than a decade. This faction in the CPC was headed by the late president Jiang Zemin, who had handpicked Xi as his heir apparent in 2007.

Wang was given the vice presidency in 2018 as a reward for the instrumental role he played in Xi’s crackdown on official corruption from 2012 to 2017.

Han and Wang stepped down from the CPC’s Politburo Standing Committee – the pinnacle of power in China – in October 2022 and 2017, respectively, after reaching the retirement age of 68.

On Friday, Zhao Leji, 66, ranked third in the party’s standing committee, was elected chairman of Parliament by all delegates, taking over from Li Zhanshu. The role involves presiding over lawmaking sessions and is ranked third in the Politburo Standing Committee.

The usually stern Zhao broke into a rare smile when he shook hands with Xi after bowing to the audience. He continued smiling when shaking hands with his predecessor.

Following the announcements, goose-stepping soldiers ceremoniously brought in a copy of the Chinese Constitution, on which the newly elected officials took their oath of office.

With his left hand on the Constitution and his right fist raised, Xi pledged to be “loyal to the motherland (and) loyal to the people”, while vowing to build a prosperous and strong “modern socialist country”.

Earlier in the session, the NPC also approved a plan to restructure the Cabinet and cut the number of civil servants at the central government level by 5 per cent over the next five years.

The Straits Times

Asia News Network