Asia-Pacific

China: Xi expected to be given third term as leader at Communist Party national congress

Gathering takes place amid economic concerns and rising tension with US

Security personnel march in front of Tiananmen Gate ahead of China's 20th Communist party congress in Beijing on Sunday. Photograph: NOEL CELIS/AFP via Getty Images

Denis Staunton in Beijing
Fri Oct 14 2022 - 15:27

China’s president Xi Jinping will on Sunday open a five-yearly national congress of the country’s ruling Communist Party that is expected to give him a third term as leader. The gathering of more than 2000 party delegates comes as China faces economic headwinds as it pursues a zero Covid policy amid rising tensions with the United States.

Mr Xi (69) will open the meeting in the Great Hall of the People on Tiananmen Square with a lengthy speech that will look back on the past five years and outline the priorities for the next five. If he serves a third term, Mr Xi will break with the precedent of recent decades that has seen a two-term limit for Chinese leaders.

Ahead of the congress, the central committee of the Communist Party reaffirmed Mr Xi’s position at the core of the party’s activities. And it defended China’s “dynamic zero Covid” policy that has kept deaths and infections very low but requires mass testing, lockdown and lengthy quarantine.

“Efforts have been made to implement the requirements of containing Covid-19 while stabilising the economy and keeping development secure. The Party has co-ordinated the Covid-19 response with economic and social development, striking a balance between development and security, and maintaining a no let-up approach in routine Covid-19 prevention and control,” a communiqué said.

READ MORE

Security in Beijing was tight ahead of the congress after banners appeared on a highway bridge in the city criticising Mr Xi by name and protesting against the requirement for Covid testing every three days.

“We Don’t Want PCR Tests, We Want Food; We Want Freedom, Not Lockdowns,” one of the banners read.

The ministry of public security said that more than 1.4 million people were arrested during a 100-day operation to ensure that the congress passed off without security threats. Subway stations near Tiananmen Square have been closed for weeks and visitors to the area must pass through airport-style security.

Growth forecasts for China have been cut as the country deals with the economic impact of its zero-Covid policy and a property crash that has hurt revenues for local governments. But the International Monetary Fund (IMF) still expects China’s economy to grow by 4.4 per cent in 2023, while the US is forecast to grow by 1 per cent and the euro area by just half of that.

The US last week announced new limitations on the export of advanced semi-conductors to China, a move Beijing condemned as an attempt to hobble its growth.

“The global industrial and supply chains come into shape as a result of both the law of the market and the choices of businesses. Arbitrarily placing curbs for political purposes destabilise the supply and industrial chains, hurts others and backfires on oneself. It will only further weaken the already fragile world economy,” foreign ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning said on Friday.

President Joe Biden’s first formal National Security Strategy this week identified China as “America’s most consequential geopolitical challenge”. The White House said the US was not seeking competition to tip over into confrontation or a new cold war but the document says China represents a more serious challenge than Russia.

“Russia poses an immediate threat to the free and open international system, recklessly flouting the basic laws of the international order today, as its brutal war of aggression against Ukraine has shown,” it says.

“(China), by contrast, is the only competitor with both the intent to reshape the international order and, increasingly, the economic, diplomatic, military, and technological power to advance that objective.”

LATEST STORIES