Xi set to stay in office until at least 2028
Xi Jinping tightens grip on power, Belarus threatens to cut gas transit to EU, Hong Kong jails protester over political chants
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The Chinese Communist party has passed its first “historical resolution” in 40 years, in a development likely to pave the way for President Xi Jinping to stay in office until at least 2028.
The resolution — formally adopted by the party’s central committee at the end of its annual meeting, or plenum, yesterday — declared that Xi’s leadership was “the key to the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation”, according to a summary published by the official Xinhua news agency.
The central committee typically holds one plenum a year, attended by its 370 full and alternate members at a military hotel on the western outskirts of Beijing. This week’s plenum opened on Monday and is particularly significant because it comes just a year before a party congress will appoint a new leadership team to serve until 2027.
Communist China’s two most revered leaders, Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping, used similar resolutions to secure their grip on power in 1945 and 1981, respectively. By declaring that “the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation has entered an irreversible historical process” under Xi’s leadership, the party has in effect anointed him as an equal of Mao and Deng, eclipsing his predecessors Hu Jintao and Jiang Zemin.