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Deleted member 13312
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Yeah, the capacity to be completely without principals and jumping from one ship to another just for his own agenda. They really don't make them like that anymore.
Should term limit for China's presidency remain the same, be extended, or eliminated?
- Thread starter Klon
- Start date
Xi changed the law because he had a wide swath of consensus to do so from the rest of the CCP elite. I think a lot of observers mistake anecdotes of internal dissent to be representative of a much larger group than is actually there. The number of people he had to “beat down” was considerably few compared to the size of the party elite’s ranks, and the mandate he had for beating down the few that he did was given to him by that elite rank, not taken by him. He needed their support of others to even go after the people that he did. How did Xi get reins on the PLA? He was *given* those reins by the rest of the party establishment. If he wasn’t granted control of the PLA by the party elite he would have had to collude with the PLA’s top generals to have gotten that control, but if that were the case then he wouldn’t have targeted top generals and their lower ranks for corruption. The only way he could have gained control over the military and still be able to purge the military’s top ranks was if he was given that control by other people with say and power over the military.
People thought that Xi had an adversarial relationship with Hu. Turns out they’re actually buddies. People thought that he and Li had an icy relationship and that Li would be canned in Xi’s second term, and it turns out they get along just fine. You don’t get to where Xi has gotten to, taken the path to power Xi has taken, without the party establishment backing you. You don’t get to net tigers like Zhou Yongkang or Xu Caihou without the rest of the party establishment and apparatus behind you. You don’t get to change the constitution to enshrine your name or get most of what you want at the National Party Congress without agreement and support from party elders and other party elites.
The CCP is not the CPP or the AKP, where the head of the party is also the guy sitting at the center of the only patron-client network that matters, and China is not a competitive democracy where someone can only rise to a permanent leadership position by knee capping and thugging others and undermining normal processes. The CCP is a non hereditary non autocratic authoritarian party, and when you rise in a system like that you do it through a leadership selection system, you do so through the support of other patrons, and it happens through established rules and processes. Xi has amassed a significant degree of power, yes, but it was by following process, not breaking process. That’s not brutalizing the law. It’s not the kind of wanton power grab some might like to caricature it as, because it doesn’t have to be when your system is already authoritarian.
As for why Xi chose to maintain the title of President and not simply dictate things from the backgrounds, it’s probably because in order to make significant progress in his now massive policy agenda he needs to take a hands on role. If anyone was paying attention to the 18th NPC and the first Plenum of the 18th Central Committee they would have noted that there was no way to accomplish even a fraction of the items they set out to do in that 5 year plan within two presidential terms, and especially not with a CCP fragmented into separate petty interests the way it was before the anti corruption drive. The entire point of the 18th NPC was to signal that drastic changes were coming to China’s political system, and that business as usual would be no more. What we’re seeing with Xi is simply an extension of what was telegraph a half decade ago. This impression that Xi accumulates titles and power out of vanity and power lust is a gross misunderstanding and underestimation of both the man and the Chinese political system. What happened yesterday was all coordinated. Xi operating in step, and not out of line, with the rest of the CCP establishment.
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I think the party decided all the way back in 2012 that this was lower risk than sticking with the system they had before. I really don’t think people appreciate just how much dysfunction and deficiency emerged under the gridlock of the Hu years.
The same factors that upheld enforcement of the term limits also have the power to restrain Xi if things go *really* wrong. Can’t underestimate the rest of the party establishment here. As much as people having been pushing this comparison, Xi is no Mao. His power is a lot more dependent on consensus and agreement with other power brokers in the party than the storied personal legitimacyh Mao drew from as a revolutionary hero, and that’s not going to change unless whatever agenda he ends up shepherding commits miracles.
This is very true in liberal societies. Not nearly as true in China during the reform period.
In most ways Xi isn't special, but he’s proven to be a particularly effective administrator and power broker. What matters more though isn’t so much that Xi himself is at the helm, but that *someone* has the centralized authority to dictate the agenda and make sure it is implemented downstream effectively, and without resistance. The significance of term limits being abolished is structural, not personal. The deep concern that emerged within the party establishment during the Hu years was that the good times weren’t going to continue without some major changes in the country’s political and economic systems, but the political norms they had institutionalized, which emphasized power sharing and factional balance in theory but in effect harbored petty interest politics, corruption, and paralysis, proved to be wholly inadequate to the task. There was a real feeling within both the party and the country running up to the 18th NPC that if they couldn’t get things right again with next administration there could be risk of a real crisis. Xi is just the spearhead of a broader initiative by the whole leadership of the CCP to push for a broader structural transformation of the country’s politics.
He is in high his 90’s and is leading a coalition of opposition parties to try and topple the incumbent prime minister Najib Razak. Google Malaysiakini to get all the coming election mud slinging news.
I don't know that there were dysfunction and deficiency. How did they manifest? Going by most statistics, China was doing similarly to how it's doing now (mostly high growth and progress).
See end.
Is the reform period now (serious question)? Does that mean that Xi is micromanaging China?
To me, he's not been shown to be better than a generic Chinese president in running the country. Power politics may be a different issue.
You present a story of the Chinese political elite finding that their system was malfunctioning and deciding that major reforms were needed. To implement them, the leader (who happened to be Xi) had to increase his power and stay for more than ten years. This could be true, but so could a number of other stories. I don't think it's possible to conclusively know anything from an outsider perspective.
I also think that, assuming your description is correct, the party leadership could have simply selected someone who was committed to comprehensively deepening reforms to take over in 2023, thus ensuring the progress of the agenda without the risks that come with abolishing term limits. This is what I was talking about at the end of my last comment.
As a side note, could you briefly describe the reforms that are under way? As in, when Xi and the party are done with them, what will be different?
manqiangrexue
Brigadier
1. I know you didn't claim that but your last post and this post too both describe it. It's a show-not-tell moment. "Rules are rules" doesn't mean anything; apples are apples, people are people. That you think rules are inflexible shows your worship of them. In reality, rules are legal tools designed by regular people to achieve an intent and if that intent is changed or if it seems that they are being exploited/causing undesirable effects, the rules can be changed. Just like if we agree to study together every Sunday for the board exam but then you find out that Sunday's the only day your girlfriend is available to see you, you can say, "It's Sunday doesn't work for me anymore; I can only do Saturday now." Boom, rules changed because situation changed. Exactly as that. Rules made for a China of 40 years ago were made by less educated people for a China that is arguably a different country than today's China. There's absolutely no reason whatsoever that the CCP of today can't get together and edit those rules.
2. I don't know how long and it would be a tremendous waste of time for me to sit in my room developing a political system that nobody will ever use, but if you read the previous posts here, there are plenty of examples of (first world) countries where there are no term limits and even an example of a US president extending his term to 4 and then putting everything back to normal again after himself. 10 years isn't long compared to all these examples; for one, it's not long enough forXi to see through his 2025 Made in China plan.
3. First of all, Trump and Xi are completely different people; whether Trump succeeds or fails has nothing to do with Xi. Secondly, and off topic, where is the disaster? The US has lost some international goodwill under Trump but its economy and military are still strong and the country is in order. Finally, that there is more at stake is actually more reason for you to keep your seasoned leader/restaurant manager on so that the work is consistently good (unless it no longer is) rather than risk everything by betting it on a rookie.
What do you thinkl of this SCMP article about the end of presidential terms? It says that the title of president is the least important of the 3 titles that xi has, and also other things.
Well, china had also deng as a paramount leader before and they did manage to transmit his power to others. I dont see why they cant do the same for xi. Eventually xi will get to old to rule. Then, his power will get transmited to others. At least, thats the way i see it. But i could be wrong. In fact, we all could be wrong about this issue, no matter how do we see it, because no one here can see behind the walls of power in china, let alone see the future. But this is something that china (and the world ) will have to live with.
Well, china had also deng as a paramount leader before and they did manage to transmit his power to others. I dont see why they cant do the same for xi. Eventually xi will get to old to rule. Then, his power will get transmited to others. At least, thats the way i see it. But i could be wrong. In fact, we all could be wrong about this issue, no matter how do we see it, because no one here can see behind the walls of power in china, let alone see the future. But this is something that china (and the world ) will have to live with.
Done.