Delegates ‘Enthusiastic’ About China’s Decision to Two–Term Limit

File photo of Chinese President Xi Jinping (centre).

(Photo: Reuters)

China’s decision to lift presidential term limits, which will allow Xi Jinping to remain the nation’s leader indefinitely, was met with gushing enthusiasm by delegates gathered for the annual meeting of the nation's parliament that started Monday.

Critics on social media may have attacked the move and drawn parallels to North Korea or suggested a Chairman Mao-type cult of personality was forming, but the party loyalists who attend the gathering say the decision is popular with ordinary Chinese people and asserted that China was lucky to have a leader of President Xi’s calibre.

The ruling Communist Party’s decision late last month to remove the two-term limit sets the stage for Xi to extend his power, and is set to be ratified with a constitutional amendment during the two-week parliamentary session. Xi has recently began his second five-year term.

"If a good leader comes into power, we should let him remain in that leadership position forever. In this way, there is continuity. It's great!", said Zhang Donghe, a delegate from the gritty, industrial province of Hebei, which surrounds Beijing.

The largely rubber-stamp parliament, known as the National People's Congress, is stacked with those who follow the word of the central leadership to the letter.

Wang Chen, secretary general of the parliamentary session, told lawmakers on Monday that there was a "unanimous call" from all those they surveyed about the reform scrapping term limits, and that was the "main consideration" for proposing it.

Wang’s reading of the term limits proposal prompted a bout of sustained applause from the delegates in the Great Hall of the People.

Asked if the move for Xi to potentially become president for life represented a backward step, Wang Jiaqi, from the rustbelt northeastern province of Jilin, said China should follow its own political model.

We don’t have to follow other countries’ models. We have our own history and own systems and institutions.

Wang Jiaqi, from the rustbelt northeastern province of Jilin told Reuters

"I really support it. The common folk really support it," Wang said. "You know, President Xi, I really admire him."

The limit of two five-year presidential terms was written into China’s constitution after Mao Zedong’s death in 1976 by Deng Xiaoping, who recognised the dangers of one-man rule and the cult of personality and instead espoused collective leadership.

(This article has been published in an arrangement with Reuters)