This week, Xi Jinping is close to achieving what Bill Clinton tried and failed to do: to remove the restriction on an individual serving more than two terms as leader of his country. It will mean that Xi is able to remain in charge of China beyond 2023, when his second five-year term will expire, and to become the longest-serving leader since Mao Zedong. Already, the Chinese constitution is being rewritten to incorporate his personal thoughts so a personality cult, too, is being created. For anyone who remembers the hell of the Cultural Revolution, it’s quite a step.
Yet it’s one that’s being greeted with a yawn in the West. Given that the Chinese people did not get to vote for Xi in the first place, it might be argued that it doesn’t matter if he serves a third, unelected term. It might sound undemocratic, but since when can a Communist one-party state be confused with a democracy?
Xi’s rewriting of the constitution does matter because it removes a guard against autocracy that has been in place since soon after Mao’s death in 1976, and was specifically introduced to prevent a personality cult building up around any future leader.
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