Table of Contents
• China removed presidential term limits from its constitution, giving President Xi Jinping the right to remain in office indefinitely, and confirming his status as the country’s most powerful leader since Mao Zedong died more than 40 years ago
CAMBODIA
• International non-government organizations have repeatedly called on Cambodia to enact term limits.
• Hun Sen, 65, has served as prime minister since 1985 and this month said he’d like to serve two more terms (which would extend to 2028).
• Hun Sen has the support of China, which has provided billions of dollars in infrastructure loans.
CHAD
• Idriss Deby seized power in a coup in 1990 and was most recently reelected in 2011. A referendum in 2005 scrapped limits because, Deby said, “the life of the nation was in danger.”
KAZAKHSTAN
• Kazakhstan now has a limit of two five-year terms, but it doesn’t apply to the country’s first president. Nazarbayev is the first and only president Central Asia’s largest oil exporter has known.
NICARAGUA
• Nicaragua scrapped term limits in 2014, paving the
RWANDA
• A constitutional amendment in 2015 will limit presidential terms to two, but not until 2020. Kagame therefore will be eligible to continue as president until 2034 if he chooses.
• Paul Kagame, 59, was just re-elected to his thir d term in office as president, with officials saying he garnered 98 per cent of the vote.
TAJIKISTAN
• Voters in Tajikistan in 2016 improbably voted by a 94.5 per cent in favour of allowing Rahmon, 64, to be president-for-life. The previous year’s parliament law declaring him “Leader of the Nation” was evidently not enough status.
• Should he choose to retire, the minimum age for candidates was amended so that his son will meet the cutoff in a planned 2020 election. According to the laws enacted, the next leader is subject to only two consecutive terms.
XI JINPING
•General Secretary of the Communist Party of China
•President of the People’s Republic of China
• Chairman of the Central Military Commission.
POWER
• The signs of Xi continuing beyond his term in 2023 have been visible for some time now. In 2016, Xi was officially designated by the CC as “the core” of the leadership, a title he shares
with Mao TseTung, Deng Xiaoping and Jiang Zemin.
• More recently, two prominent newspapers conferred the title lingxu on him. This word means leader, but one of the highest calibre in contrast to simply being a leader or lingdao, and this designation he shares with Mao and Deng only.
WHY DOES CHINA HAVE TERM LIMITS AND AGE THRESHOLDS FOR ITS LEADERS?
• Deng Xiaoping put the limits in place in the 1980s as part of his effort to ensure that China was never again subjected to a crushing dictatorship like that of Chairman Mao and the turmoil it occasioned.
INTERNAL DEMOCRACY
• The president of China is elected by the representatives that are elected from lower leadership levels who are believed to represent most of the people in China.
• National People’s Congress
• 13th session of National People’s Congress (NPC)
CHINA
• 22 provinces, five autonomous regions, four direct-controlled municipalities (Beijing, Tianjin,
Shanghai, and Chongqing), and the special administrative regions of Hong Kong and Macau.
INSTABILITY IN CHINA?
• Other amendments could see the Xi Jinping Thought being written into the state constitution as well as the establishment of a new anti-graft body called the National Supervisory Commission (NSC).
• This last named body will be one of the biggest institutional changes in recent times. Currently, the Central Commission on Discipline Inspection (CCDI) monitors party members, while the NSC will supervise all public workers, including those in government, courts, as well as doctors, academics and teachers.
WHY INDIA SHOULD WORRY
• “Xi has said that by 2035, he intends to make China a first rate military power capable of winning wars.
• He has also said that by 2049, he wants to see China at the centre stage of international relations.” This could mean “pressure on India—in its periphery, in the region and beyond”,
BORDER ISSUES
• India and China fought a brief but bloody border war in 1962 that went badly for India
• With a stronger Xi in power, analysts say there would be less chances of a China giving India any concessions on the boundary dispute.
DEBT TO GDP RATIO
•China has been battling high debt levels for years, but debt-to-GDP ratio is still about 260 percent, according to the Bank of International Settlements
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