Ominous Trends in China

On March 11, China ’s National People’s Congressmade official what had been rumored for more than two weeks, voting to abolish the two-term limit on the presidency. Current president Xi Jinping is now able to serve in that post indefinitely. That decision is merely the latest in a series of ominous developments that have occurred since Xi took office in 2013.  Ending term limits significantly alters China ’s political system. Deng Xiaoping, the architect of the country’s radical economic reforms beginning in the late 1970s, also implemented that crucial political reform. He and his followers did so to guard against a repeat of the horrid abuses committed during the long, tyrannical rule of Mao Ze dong. And the restriction did achieve a limited success. China hardly became a democratic state, but within the context of a one-party system, Deng’s successors served more like chief executive officers, with other members of the party elite acting as a board of directors that could, and did, serv e as a check on the president’s power. Removing the limit on presidential terms means that an incumbent now has abundant time to accumulate more and more personal power. The threat of strongman rule, withall its potential abuses, has returned.As I point out in arecent article inAspenia Online, Xi was exhibiting troubling behavior even before pushing through the legislation ending term limits. Under the guise of combatting corruption (admittedly a very real problem in China), he...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - Category: American Health Authors: Source Type: blogs