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Xi Jinping achieved a precedent-breaking five-year presidential term on Friday during a parliamentary session where he further tightened control as China faces mounting challenges at home and globally.
Nearly 3,000 members of China’s rubber-stamp parliament, the National People’s Congress (NPC), voted unanimously in the Great Hall of the People for 69-year-old Xi in an election where there was no other candidate.
Xi, who has taken China in a more authoritarian direction since assuming control a decade ago, is stepping down amid competing ties with Washington and the West over Taiwan, Beijing’s support for Russia, trade and human rights.
Domestically, the world’s second-largest economy faces a challenging recovery from three years of Xi’s zero-COVID policy, fragile confidence among consumers and businesses and weak global demand for Chinese exports.
China’s economy grew by just three percent last year, among its worst performances in decades, and Beijing’s parliament set a modest growth target for this year of only around five percent.
“In his third term, Xi should focus on economic revival,” said Willy Lam, a senior fellow at the Jamestown Foundation, a US think tank. “But if they continue to do what they have been doing – stricter party and state control over the private sector and confrontation with the West, the prospects for success will not be encouraging.”
Vladimir Putin is hosting China’s top diplomat amid concerns in the West that Beijing is considering giving Russia military support. Although Putin has declared that relations with China have ‘reached new frontiers,’ experts say there are limits to how far Beijing will go.
Russian President Vladimir Putin was one of the first foreign leaders to congratulate Xi on his third term. The two sealed an “unrestricted” partnership between China and Russia in February last year, days before Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine.
Xi set the stage for another term when he abolished presidential term limits in 2018, becoming China’s most powerful leader since Mao Zedong, who founded the People’s Republic.
China’s president is largely ceremonial, and Xi’s key position in power was extended last October when he was reconfirmed for another five years as general secretary of the Communist Party’s central committee.
Zero-COVID was lifted in December
During Friday’s vote, Xi chatted casually with Li Qiang, who sits to his left and is poised to be confirmed on Saturday for China’s No. 2 position, a role that makes him a former Shanghai party leader and close ally of Xi. responsible for managing the economy.
Other Xi-approved officials will also be elected or appointed to key government posts over the coming weekend, including the deputy prime minister, the central bank governor and many other ministers and department heads.
The annual parliamentary session, the first since China lifted its three-year COVID ban, will end on Monday, when Xi will deliver a speech that will be followed by a media question-and-answer session by Li.
During Friday’s session, Xi and dozens of other top leaders on stage did not wear masks, but everyone else in the packed auditorium did.
China abruptly ended zero-covid-19 in December after unprecedented nationwide protests against the policy.
Parliament on Friday also elected Zhao Leji, 66, as the new parliament speaker and Han Zheng, 68, as the new vice president. The two men were from Xi’s previous party leadership team in the Politburo Standing Committee.
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