BEIJING, 10 Mar: Chinese leader Xi Jinping was awarded a third five-year term as the nation\u2019s president Friday, putting him on track to stay in power for life at a time of severe economic challenges and rising tensions with the U.S. and others.
\nThe endorsement of Xi\u2019s appointment by the ceremonial National People\u2019s Congress was a foregone conclusion for a leader who has sidelined potential rivals and filled the top ranks of the ruling Communist Party with his supporters since taking power in 2012.
\nThe vote for Xi was 2,952 to 0 by the NPC, members of which are appointed by the ruling party.
\nXi, 69, had himself named to a third five-year term as party general secretary in October, breaking with a tradition under which Chinese leaders handed over power once a decade. A two-term limit on the figurehead presidency was deleted from the Chinese Constitution earlier, prompting suggestions he might stay in power for life.
\nNo candidate lists were distributed, and Xi and those awarded other posts were believed to have run unopposed. The election remains almost entirely shrouded in secrecy, apart from the process in which delegates to the congress put four ballots into boxes placed around the vast auditorium of the Great Hall of the People.
\nXi was also unanimously named commander of the 2 million-member People\u2019s Liberation Army, a force that explicitly takes its orders from the party rather than the country.
\nIn other voting, the party\u2019s third-ranking official, Zhao Leji, was named head of the National People\u2019s Congress. The vast majority of the body\u2019s legislative work is headed by its Standing Committee, which meets year-round.
\nZhao, 67, a holdover from the previous party Politburo Standing Committee, the apex of political power in China headed by Xi, won Xi\u2019s trust as head of the party\u2019s anti-corruption watchdog, the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, pursuing an anti-graft campaign that has frozen all potential opposition to Xi.
\nFormer Shanghai party boss and member of the last Politburo Standing Committee Han Zheng was named to the largely ceremonial post of state vice president.
\nXi, Zhao and Han then took the oath of office with one hand on a copy of the Chinese Constitution. The session also swore in 14 congress vice chairpersons.
\nWang Huning, a holdover from the last Politburo Standing Committee, was later named head of the Chinese People\u2019s Political Consultative Conference, the NPC\u2019s advisory body that, in coordination with the party\u2019s United Front Department, works to build Xi\u2019s influence and image abroad. Wang has been a top adviser to three Chinese leaders and has authored books critiquing Western politics and society.
\nXi\u2019s new term and the appointment of loyalists to top posts underscores his near-total monopoly on Chinese political power, eliminating any potential opposition to his hyper-nationalistic agenda of building China into the top political, military and economic rival to the U.S. and the chief authoritarian challenge to the Washington-led democratic world order. AP<\/p>\n
While six others serve with him on the Politburo Standing Committee, all have longstanding ties to Xi and can be counted on to see to his will on issues from party discipline to economic management.
\nThe standing committee has only men and the 24-member Politburo, which has had only four female members since the 1990s, also has no women after the departure of Vice Premier Sun Chunlan.
\nSecond-ranked Li Qiang is widely expected to take over as premier, nominally in charge of the Cabinet and caretaker of the economy. Li is best known for ruthlessly enforcing a brutal \u201czero-COVID\u201d lockdown on Shanghai last spring as party boss of the Chinese financial hub, proving his loyalty to Xi in the face of complaints from residents over their lack of access to food, medical care and basic services.
\nFormer head of the manufacturing powerhouse of Guangdong province, seventh-ranked Li Xi has already been appointed to replace Zhao as head of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection.
\nThe congress is also expected to pass a measures intensifying party control over national level government organs as part of Xi\u2019s campaign of centralizing power under the party.
\nAt the opening of the annual congress session on Sunday, outgoing Premier Li Keqiang announced plans for a consumer-led revival of the struggling economy, setting this year\u2019s growth target at \u201caround 5%.\u201d Last year\u2019s growth in the world\u2019s second-largest economy fell to 3%, the second-weakest level since at least the 1970s.
\nSeparately, the Ministry of Finance announced a 7.2% budget increase in the defense budget to 1.55 trillion yuan ($224 billion), marking a slight increase over 2022. China\u2019s military spending is the world\u2019s second highest after the United States.
\nIn the days then, Xi and his new Foreign Minister Qin Gang have set a highly combative tone for relations with the U.S., amid tensions over trade, technology, Taiwan, human rights and Beijing\u2019s refusal to criticize Russia\u2019s invasion of Ukraine.
\nOn Tuesday, Qin warned in unusually stark terms about the possibility of U.S.-China frictions leading to something more dire.
\n\u201cIf the United States does not hit the brake, but continues to speed down the wrong path, no amount of guardrails can prevent derailing and there surely will be conflict and confrontation,\u201d Qin said in his first news conference since taking up his post last year.
\nThat echoed comments at a small group meeting of delegates from Xi on Monday, in which he said that \u201cWestern countries led by the United States have implemented all-round containment, encirclement and suppression of China, which has brought unprecedented grave challenges to our nation\u2019s development.\u201d
\nXi followed up on Wednesday by calling for \u201cmore quickly elevating the armed forces to world-class standards.\u201d
\nChina must maximize its \u201cnational strategic capabilities\u201d in a bid to \u201csystematically upgrade the country\u2019s overall strength to cope with strategic risks, safeguard strategic interests and realize strategic objectives,\u201d Xi was quoted as saying to a meeting of delegates by the official Xinhua News Agency.
\nAsked about China\u2019s future foreign relations under Xi, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning struck a relatively mild tone.
\nBeijing maintains an \u201cindependent foreign policy of peace\u201d and will \u201ccontinue to view and develop China-U.S. relations in accordance with the principles of peaceful coexistence, mutual respect and win-win cooperation,\u201d Mao said at a daily briefing.
\n\u201cWe hope the U.S. side can also meet us halfway and push China-U.S. relations back on the track of sound and stable development,\u201d she said.
\nRussian President Vladimir Putin, with whom Xi has formed close ties, issued his congratulations, saying Xi\u2019s new term is an \u201cacknowledgement of your achievements as the head of state, as well as wide support of your policy focused on China\u2019s socioeconomic development and protection of its national interests on the global stage.\u201d
\nUnder Xi, China and Russia announced a \u201cno limits\u201d relationship and China has pointedly refused to criticize Russia\u2019s invasion of Ukraine while echoing Moscow\u2019s claim that the U.S. and NATO were to blame for provoking the Kremlin. Beijing has also blasted sanctions imposed on Russia after it invaded Ukraine, while Russia has staunchly supported China amid tensions with the U.S. over Taiwan.
\n\u201cWe will continue to coordinate our joint work related to the most important issues on the regional and international agenda,\u201d Putin said, according to the Kremlin.
\nNorth Korean leader Kim Jong Un, head of the ruling Worker\u2019s Party, also sent congratulations, saying \u201cthe two parties and the two countries are defending and advancing socialism, the common cause, while supporting and closely cooperating with each other.\u201d China is the impoverished and isolated North\u2019s most important political ally and source of food and fuel aid. AP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
BEIJING, 10 Mar: Chinese leader Xi Jinping was awarded a third five-year term as the nation\u2019s president Friday, putting him on track to stay in power for life at a time of severe economic challenges and rising tensions with the U.S. and others. The endorsement of Xi\u2019s appointment by the ceremonial National People\u2019s Congress was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-212513","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-world"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/212513","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=212513"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/212513\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=212513"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=212513"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=212513"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}