AFRICA
Xi Advances His Authoritarian Power Grab by Abolishing Term Limits
This Sunday the Communist Party of China revealed its abolition of constitutional limits on presidential terms. This officially marks the current leader, Xi JinPing’s ambition to stay in power and set himself as ruler for life as long as he wants.
This is not the first move towards Authoritarian governance internationally as we have observed increasing manifestations of highly personalized, concentrated exercise of power, including Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi of Egypt and Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey. Hungary and Poland, who were not so long ago relieved from Soviet control, are also tilting towards Authoritarianism.
For years since post-Cold War, the number of democracies have been on the rise but recently this increase has been stalled. Susan L Shirk, the chairwoman of the 21st Century China Program at the University of California, San Diego brands this trend as an “authoritarian reversion”, a threatening and sobering global contagion. A few decades ago, this statement would have triggered great international opposition and condemnation. However, currently, few countries have the authority to speak out and the United States have withdrawn from its vehement anti-Communist stance from the last century as well. Authoritarian states are more exempt from global isolation and enjoy greater impunity now.
Trump’s administration did not provide concrete response regarding Xi’s action. The White House Press Secretary, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, commented that “I believe that’s a decision for China to make about what’s best for their country”, condoning China’s autonomy over the term limits of presidents.
Some accuse Trump’s administration of following the same strain of Authoritarianism with China and Russia, as President Trump has continuously expressed discontent towards the traditional checks on power and the news media. Putin has also discredited the validity of American democracy during the campaign of the presidential election in 2016.
China has been a one-party state that extends thorough control over its politics, people and economy. Xi’s reasoning behind this statement is to protect and uphold the government’s centralized power in this age of distrust, unrest and rapid media and technologies. This elimination of term limits ended the era of collective leadership that had limited terms of Jiang Zemin, who reigned from 1993 to 2003. While Western media interpreted his rule as a hope for China to move towards democracy and openness, this proved to be a false interpretation and delusion.
Xi has just begun his 5-year term in 2018, and will be 69 years old when his second term ends in 2023. Even though China’s actions and motivations are uniquely shaped by its histories and domestic politics, they are still guided by and under the shadow of the collapse of Soviet Union in 1991. The government is wary of the event following the trend of democratization in 1989. Chinese students gathered in Tiananmen Square, vouching for openness and democracy, which still poses existential threat and nightmare to the Chinese government.
In Xi’s vision of Chinese revival and rise to power in the world, stability and centralized control is a key component. Last fall during the Communist Party Congress, Xi used China as an example and leading model for the rest of the developing world, revealing his international ambition. Under Xi’s increasingly centralized approach, China, as the world’s second-largest economy and one of the largest military forces, is becoming increasingly Authoritarian.
Shirk from the 21st Century China Program of UCSD poses a poignant question: “Who is going to punish him internationally now?”