Chairman Xi? Party Congress Set to Hand Chinese Leader Unprecedented Power

Xi Jinping has amassed unchecked power in the past decade. Now a Communist Party congress that opens Sunday in Beijing is poised to grant the Chinese president and party general secretary an unprecedented third five-year term in office despite a slowing economy and mounting domestic unrest over his zero-COVID health restrictions.

Notable achievements of Mr. Xi, who turns 70 in June, include a massive political purge of rivals in consolidating power, China’s continued rise as an economic, military and ideological challenger to the U.S., and his personal role in the government’s widely questioned handling of the COVID-19 outbreak that began nearly three years ago.

The purge ousted hundreds of people, including some of the ruling Communist Party’s most senior officials, along with senior generals of the People’s Liberation Army. More than 170 minister- or vice minister-level officials were caught in the purge, carried out under the guise of battling endemic corruption.

For the U.S. and its allies in the region, one of the more worrisome signs about the direction of China under Mr. Xi is the growing entente between Beijing and Moscow. In February, shortly before the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Mr. Xi and Russian President Vladimir Putin signed an agreement that called for “no limits” on cooperation between the two authoritarian states.

The Beijing-Russia axis heightened tensions with the West and increased fears that China would follow up the Russian invasion of Ukraine with a military move against Taiwan. (Read more from “Chairman Xi? Party Congress Set to Hand Chinese Leader Unprecedented Power” HERE)

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