The modern, affluent new China. Incomprehensible to many Western minds.
Why does the CPC want to remove the expression that the President and Vice-President of the People's Republic of China "shall serve no more than two consecutive terms" from the country's Constitution?
Why is China lifting the two-term limit for Xi? The answer can be found by reading the amendment itself (and remembering a little history):
1. In the seventh paragraph of the Preamble to the Constitution, “the guidance of Marxism-Leninism, Mao Zedong Thought, Deng Xiaoping Theory and the important thought of Three Represents” is amended to read “the guidance of Marxism-Leninism, Mao Zedong Thought, Deng Xiaoping Theory, the important thought of Three Represents, the Scientific Outlook on Development, and the Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era”; “improve the socialist legal system” is amended to read“improve the socialist rule of law”; before “work hard and self-reliantly” is inserted “apply a new vision of development”; and “promote the coordinated development of the material, political and spiritual civilizations, to turn China into a socialist country that is prosperous, powerful, democratic and culturally advanced” is amended to read “promote the coordinated development of the material, political, spiritual, social and ecological civilizations, to turn China into a strong modern socialist country that is prosperous, democratic, culturally advanced, harmonious, and beautiful, and to realize the great rejuvenation for the Chinese nation.” This paragraph is accordingly amended to read: “The victory in China’s New-Democratic Revolution and the successes in its socialist cause have been achieved by the Chinese people of all nationalities, under the leadership of the Communist Party of China and the guidance of Marxism-Leninism and Mao Zedong Thought, by upholding truth, correcting errors and surmounting numerous difficulties and hardships. China will be in the primary stage of socialism for a long time to come. The basic task of the nation is to concentrate its effort on socialist modernization along the road of Chinese-style socialism. Under the leadership of the Communist Party of China and the guidance of Marxism-Leninism, Mao Zedong Thought, Deng Xiaoping Theory, the important thought of Three Represents, the Scientific Outlook on Development, and the Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era, the Chinese people of all nationalities will continue to adhere to the people’s democratic dictatorship and the socialist road, persevere in reform and opening to the outside world, steadily improve socialist institutions, develop the socialist market economy, develop socialist democracy, improve the socialist rule of law, apply a new vision of development, and work hard and self-reliantly to modernize the country’s industry, agriculture, national defense and science and technology step by step and promote the coordinated development of the material, political, spiritual, social and ecological civilizations, to turn China into a strong modern socialist country that is prosperous, democratic, culturally advanced, harmonious, and beautiful, and to realize the great rejuvenation for the Chinese nation.”
[This article, among other changes, adds Presidents Hu Jintao’s and Xi Jinping’s political ideologies to the Preamble; replaces “legal system” (法制) with “rule of law” (法治; which is effectively rule bylaw, one could argue); and modifies the goal of the Chinese people’s endeavors in accordance with the phrase used in Xi’s report to the Party’s 19th Congress.] [NPC Observer]
A little history: In 1980, Deng Xiaoping challenged China to provide a basic xiaokang society by 2020, ‘a society in which no one is poor and everyone receives an education, has paid employment, more than enough food and clothing, access to medical services, old-age support, a home and a comfortable life’.
That goal will be 100% achieved in 2020, so it’s time to set new goals that will take China in the direction Mao set for it: a harmonious dàtóng society*. Since, as Mao observed, it will probably require 100 years to reach dàtóng and since Reform and Opening has achieved its purpose, it’s time to set China back on the Communist road again. That is, after all, the overall job of the Communist Party! Duh!
The only people who will be surprised by Xi’s return to (more) Communism is those who thought that Reform and Opening represented China’s capitulation to Capitalism, the Western media and Western Chinese ‘experts’. The Chinese people will not be. 90% of them greatly enjoyed their earlier experiments with Communism, despite their problems and shortcomings. Today, 75% of them feel nostalgic about the Cultural Revolution and President Xi called it ‘a dream that could not be realized at the time’.
Why could not the dream of the Cultural Revolution be realized in the 1960s? Because the West placed China under crushing embargoes and constantly threatened it with nuclear attacks, so Deng decided to get strong before permitting any more communist progress–for which he was much criticized by Maoists, though he was probably correct (the USA only stopped bombing China in 1989).
2021 will begin a new era, in which China is strong enough to do whatever it chooses so Xi is responsible for coming up with his own thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for the New Era.
He will fill in the details on June 1, 2021, the centenary of Mao’s founding of the CCP but Xi told the 19th Party Plenum in 2017:
- China’s GINI under Mao was the best in the world but, as Deng warned, some grew richer than others during Reform and Opening and China became almost as unequal as the USA. So, until 2039, we must devote ourselves to re-creating a society in which wealth and income are so equitably distributed that the world will envy us.
- Once our GINI is fixed, until by 2049, we must complete the job of making China, once again, the envy of the world: the richest, most beautiful, most powerful, most harmonious society on earth: a prosperous, modern, Socialist society.
Since Xi is the architect of this program and since his first term was so successful, it makes sense for him to stay for a third term, just as it did for America’s greatest President, Franklin Delano Roosevelt.