Beijing: China’s ruling Communist Party will hold its key Congress from Sunday during which a new set of senior officials will be appointed except for President Xi Jinping who is set to get endorsed for a record third term, breaking over the three-decade norm for top leaders to step down after a 10-year tenure.
The weeklong 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC), in which 2,296 “elected” delegates under the norms and guidelines set by Xi will attend a closed-door meeting, is being held amid a rare protest against Xi and his rigid zero-COVID policy of widespread restrictions and lockdowns, resulting in the slowdown of the world’s second-largest economy.
Except for 69-year-old Xi, all top officials including the number two leader Premier Li Keqiang will be replaced in the massive reshuffle to follow in the days to come, which included a new foreign minister replacing the incumbent Wang Yi.
The Congress will be held from October 16 to 22, spokesperson for the congress Sun Yeli told a press conference here on Saturday answering selected questions from the local and foreign media.
The Congress will incorporate the major theoretical views and strategic thinking to be established and the amendment will fully embody the latest achievements in adapting Marxism to the Chinese context and to the needs of the times, Sun said without commenting on Xi’s continuation.
Ahead of the once-in-a-five-year conclave, photos circulating on social media on Thursday showed banners hung on overpasses of a major thoroughfare in the northwest of the Chinese capital, protesting against Xi’s unpopular zero-COVID policy and authoritarian rule.
Banners displayed on a bridge in the district of Haidian, home to universities and tech firms in Beijing, read: food, not COVID test; reform, not a cultural revolution; freedom, not lockdowns; votes, not a leader; dignity, not lies; citizens, not slaves.
Battery-operated loudspeakers were hung in some places blaring anti-Xi and anti-zero COVID slogans.
Following the incident, security which is already tight in Beijing has been further beefed up with reports that some of the areas in the city have been virtually shut down and police were deployed on numerous overpasses.
Besides concerns and disquiet over the growing unemployment in the country which climbed to a record 19 per cent, observers say discontent is brewing in the party over Xi’s massive anti-corruption crackdown against officials in the last ten years in which lakhs of officials, including top brass of the military, were punished.
From day one after assuming power in 2012, Xi has launched a ruthless campaign against corruption, which besides striking a chord with people also helped him systematically weed out political opponents.
“If there were only one lens through which to interpret Chinese President Xi Jinping’s remarkable rise over the past decade, then it would have to be his signature anti-corruption drive,” Wang Xiangwei, said former editor-in-chief of the Hong Kong-based newspaper South China Morning Post.
Since he came to power, Xi and his supporters have deftly combined this ruthless effort with a relentless ideological campaign aimed at consolidating power by crushing political rivals and strengthening control over all levels of society, Wang wrote in his recent column in the Post which states that nearly five million high-ranking tigers and flies were investigated and disciplined.
Six senior security officials, including a former justice minister, were sentenced to death with a two-year reprieve in a purge of officials in the run-up to the Congress.
At home, there is also concern over the US and the EU increasingly turning hostile against China besides neighbouring countries India and Japan over Beijing’s military might and belligerent rhetoric over its sovereignty claims.
The Congress is also being closely watched at home and abroad for its leadership changes and the much-expected continuation of Xi for an unprecedented 3rd term, and perhaps for life.
Since the death of party founder Mao Zedong in 1976, successive leaders of the party followed a rule that the party will have a leadership transition at the top and provincial levels every ten years to ensure collective leadership principle and to prevent the emergence of a one-leader dominated system to avert mass violent campaigns like Mao’s Cultural Revolution in which millions were exterminated.
To facilitate Xi’s continuation in power, China’s Constitution has already been amended in 2018 by National People’s Congress (NPC), the country’s parliament, removing two five-year tenures for the President.
A plenary meeting of the CPC consisting of about 400 senior officials which concluded a four-day preparatory meeting on October 12 ahead of the Congress left strong hints of Xi’s continuation in power.
—PTI

Press Trust of India