China's President Xi looks to remove rules against term limits in an effort to be "president for life".

China's honor guard raising the flag in Tienanmen Square. Washington Post/AP.

China is making moves to remove term limits for President Xi possibly setting him up to be a "president for life". AP. These efforts are to remove term limits that would have prevented President Xi for a third term or even a lifetime one. Xi has been centralizing power and changing the old collective leadership policies. Those policies were put into place by Deng Xiaoping after the excesses of Mao during the cultural revolution. Though China is censoring opposition to the move, even some politicians are speaking out about it. 

My Comment:

Looks like China is moving on to a system not unlike Russia. In both countries there are strongman leaders that are essentially going to be president until they pass on. Just as Putin changed the rules about term limits, so has President Xi. Along with Tayyip Erdogan in Turkey it appears another major country is now a de-facto dictatorship. Technically, all three could lose elections, but I doubt that will ever happen... 

People with a long memory are understandably upset by this move. China has a long history with one man leaders and they remember how badly Mao handled rule of one. He killed millions of people and not just because he was a brutal dictator. The problem with one-man rule is when you get someone like Mao who was also deeply incompetent. Being a brutal dictator was bad enough but one who made stupid decisions that killed millions of people? That's even worse. Nobody wants that to happen again. 

Given those circumstances it is not surprising that some are speaking out against this move. Those people are taking a risk as China is still a police state, but I am guessing they want to take the risk. China has had a long history of having bad emperors and others with one person rule, so it is not surprising that people want to avoid that again. Of course China's major internet and press censorship will mean that many of those people will never be heard by the greater public. 

Still, I don't quite see this as the disaster that everyone else is making it out to be. China under President Xi has been a fairly stable place and the country has prospered under him. He's also seems to treat his people a lot better than Mao ever did and isn't likely to make the same level of mistakes he did. He's a decent leader and I doubt that he will be Mao 2.0.

The problem is what happens after Xi is gone? He's still a relatively young 64 year old so it won't happen for quite some time, but after he is gone what will prevent the next president from being the next Mao? I see that as a much bigger threat than anything Xi could do. He seems like he is Putin 2.0. A relatively effective leader that seems to do a relatively decent job, as far as dictators go. 

The US media has, predictably, used this as a way to attack Donald Trump. Trump made a joke at the Girdiron dinner, an event where he was expected to make jokes, saying that "maybe we should try that here". The US media, being who they are, decided to report it as completely serious statement. The whole thing was pathetic since it was an obvious joke, but it is a major distraction from an important international story.