Chinese papers defend removing term presidential limits

BEIJING (Reuters) - Chinese state media on Monday attacked criticism of a vote to end presidential term limits, which effectively allows President Xi Jinping to stay in office indefinitely, saying the key to China’s path was following the Communist Party.

 

China’s largely rubber stamp parliament on Sunday overwhelmingly voted to amend the constitution, scrapping a two-term limit and adding clauses to strengthen the party’s already dominant role in politics.

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In the run up to the vote, critics on Chinese social media attacked the change and drew parallels to North Korea or suggested a Mao Zedong-type cult of personality was forming. The party only announced the proposal last month.

In an editorial, the widely read Global Times tabloid said Western political theories were of no use to China.

“We are increasingly confident that the key to China’s path lies in upholding strong Party leadership and firmly following the leadership of the Party Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping at the core,” it said in an editorial carried in both its Chinese- and English-language editions.

“In these years we have seen the rise and decline of countries and particularly the harsh reality that the Western political system doesn’t apply to developing countries and produces dreadful results.”

The official China Daily reiterated a point previously made by the party’s People’s Daily that the amendment did not “imply lifetime tenure for any leader”.

 

“Yet some people in the West insist otherwise, even though it is only through specious speculation that they claim to know better,” the English-language paper said.

Such people - it did not name names - had a deep-rooted ideological bias against China and had made one failed prediction after another about China, it added.

“Their erroneous judgments are only a litany of short-sighted calumnies against the party and the nation.”

“Yet some people in the West insist otherwise, even though it is only through specious speculation that they claim to know better,” the English-language paper said.

Such people - it did not name names - had a deep-rooted ideological bias against China and had made one failed prediction after another about China, it added.

“Their erroneous judgments are only a litany of short-sighted calumnies against the party and the nation.”