The Chinese Communist Party has announced that it will seek to amend the nation's constitution to remove the two-term limit for the presidency. If approved — and there are few doubts that it will — the amendment will permit Xi Jinping to remain in office past 2023, when his second five-year term will expire. While widely expected, the announcement also generated surprise, largely for confirming the 64-year-old Xi's naked ambition and his desire to restore a power structure that was discredited after the passing of Chairman Mao Zedong.
Since he became general secretary of the CCP's Central Committee in November 2012 and president of China five months later, Xi's tenure has been marked by the relentless consolidation of power and the assertion of party authority over virtually all spheres of life in China. He conducted a ruthless anticorruption campaign to purge enemies and win public support, and promoted supporters to key posts in the state and party bureaucracies. The propaganda machine has resurrected the term "lingxiu," a Chinese word for leader that was once used for Mao (and his successor Hua Guofeng) and has been discredited as a result. And, perhaps most significant, "Xi Jinping Thought" has been incorporated into the CCP constitution, a move that effectively elevates him above all others in interpreting policy and doctrine.
Debate about whether Xi would accept the constitution's two-term limit began immediately after he was re-elected last year to a second term as president. Unlike previous leaders, Xi did not identify an obvious successor (or potential successors), prompting speculation that he would try to stick around. Some asserted that there was no need for formal constitutional revision as the two-year limit did not apply to Xi's two other posts — CCP general secretary and the all-important chairman of the Central Military Commission — where real power resides. Over two decades ago, the president and the general secretary were different people.