The decision by Chinese President Xi Jinping to become “president for life” is a disturbing one and justifies concerns that the Chinese government is becoming more, not less, totalitarian.
China is now a potent capitlist power. But there is as little to regard for human freedom in China today as in the era of Mao.
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Through a charade of political representation, the National People’s Congress has adopted changes to the constitution — with two votes in opposition out of 2,964 people voting. The changes abolish the two-term limit that was created in the 1990s.
Mr. Xi, who was about to start his second five-year term, would have been due to step down in 2023.
The country’s leadership had already been exercising more muscle in the media, intimidating dissenting voices. Online censors now block images of the cartoon character Winnie the Pooh because critics use him as a sly substitute for references to President Xi.
The constitution was also changed to include the president’s political philosophy — “Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for the New Era.”
In this, he appears to be aping his neighbor and fellow authoritarian Kim Jong Un, whose family has its own take on socialism, within a Korean context.
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Studying Mr. Xi’s thought, as will become mandatory throughout China, carries with it overtones of Chairman Mao Zedong, who overstayed his tenure to launch the disastrous and bloody Cultural Revolution.
In making it possible for him to remain in power indefinitely, Mr. Xi will make the country less welcoming to international visitors, and more dangerous for creative people on whose enterprise China’s economic expansion depends.
China’s economic expansion of the last 20 years was enabled by its embrace of market freedoms. It has had a global impact, extending even to Toledo. A Chinese firm that became rich through property development in China chose to invest some here, buying The Docks, the Marina District, and the Park Inn Hotel. It was always hoped that democratic reforms would follow in China from its economic freedoms. With this power grab, Mr. Xi has made it obvious that human rights do not inevitably flow from free market power.
First Published March 19, 2018, 9:45 p.m.
