With plan for Xi to stay in power, China joins new era of strongmen

BEIJING — There was a time, not so long ago, when a Chinese leader setting himself up as ruler for life would have stirred international condemnation for bucking the global trend toward greater democracy. Now, such an action seems fully in keeping with moves by many countries in the other direction.

The surprise disclosure on Sunday (Feb 25) that the Communist Party was abolishing constitutional limits on presidential terms — effectively allowing President Xi Jinping to lead China indefinitely — was the latest and arguably most significant sign of the world’s decisive tilt toward authoritarian governance, often built on the highly personalised exercise of power.

The list includes Mr Vladimir Putin of Russia, Mr Abdel-Fattah Sissi of Egypt and Mr Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey. Authoritarianism is also reappearing in places such as Hungary and Poland that barely a quarter century ago shook loose the shackles of Soviet oppression.

There are many reasons for such moves by Mr Xi and others — including protecting their power and perks in an age of unrest, terrorism and war amplified by new technologies — but a significant one is that few countries have the standing or authority, morally or otherwise, to speak out — least of all, critics say, the United States.

“I mean, who is going to punish him internationally now?” asked Ms Susan Shirk, the chair of the 21st Century China Programme at the University of California, San Diego.

She and other experts described this “authoritarian reversion” as a global contagion that has undermined the abiding faith that forging liberal democracies and market economies was the surest path to prosperity and equality.

“Thirty years ago, with what Xi did, with what Erdogan has done, there would have been an outpouring of international concern: ‘You’re getting off the path,’ and so on,” said Mr Michael McFaul, a political scientist and diplomat who, before serving as the US ambassador in Moscow from 2012 to 2014, wrote extensively on building democracies.

“Nobody is making that argument today,” he added, “certainly not Trump.”

The White House on Monday brushed off questions about Mr Xi’s move.

“I believe that’s a decision for China to make about what’s best for their country,” said Ms Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the White House press secretary.

“But as you know, the president’s talked about term limits in a number of capacities during the campaign. It’s something that he supports here in the United States, but that’s a decision that would be up to China.”

Almost no one would have described China as genuinely democratic before the latest move, which was announced without fanfare; the country remains a one-party state with extensive control over political, social and economic life.

Even so, Mr Xi’s gambit ended a period of collective and term-limited leadership begun by Mr Jiang Zemin, who held the same post as Mr Xi from 1993 to 2003, that many had hoped was leading China toward greater rule of law and openness. Sunday’s move confirms a growing view that those expectations were probably naive, some say.

“We’re deluded in our conviction that everybody is going to become a democracy like us,” Dr Merriden Varrall, director of the East Asia Programme at the Lowy Institute in Australia, said.

Mr Xi, who will be 69 when his second five-year term ends in 2023, is not simply following the example set by Mr Putin or other leaders, she and other experts said.

His motivations are unique to Chinese history and politics. Yet, they were deeply shaped by the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and collapse of the Soviet Union two years later.

Those historical milestones ushered in an era of expanding political and economic freedoms. Mr McFaul said that for nearly a quarter of a century autocratic leaders “had to play defence” against the democratising trend that seized the post-Cold War order.

Authoritarian leaders now act with greater impunity — or at least less worry about international isolation.

US President Donald Trump’s critics say that while he may not yet have eroded democracy in the US, his populist appeals and nativist policies, his palpable aversion to the media and traditional checks on power, and his stated admiration for some of the strongest of strongmen are cut from the same cloth.

The trend toward authoritarianism, while specific to each country’s history, is rooted in insecurities and fears afflicting the world today: globalisation and rising inequality, the stunning and scary advances in technology, the disorienting chaos and extreme violence of civil wars like Syria’s, separatism and terror.

The institutions of the post-Cold War — which reflected the bedrock values of Western liberalism — no longer seem able to cope. Countries that once were beacons for others are consumed by the same anxiety and weakness, and internal strife.

From China’s perspective, the end of the Cold War was hardly an inspiration, having led to the toppling of one-party dictatorships. The “contagion” of 1989, which saw popular protesters bring down communist governments in Central and Eastern Europe, infected China, too.

A few months before the Berlin Wall came down, Chinese students massing in Tiananmen Square posed what officials in Beijing viewed as an existential threat, a legacy that continues to colour everything the government does to this day.

“If anything gives Xi Jinping and the party nightmares, it is perestroika and the fall of the Soviet Union,” Dr Varrall said, referring to the reforms the last Soviet leader, Mr Mikhail Gorbachev, sought before the system unraveled.

Mr Xi, as a result, believes that only stability can ensure his vision of China’s revival and emergence as the world’s power.

“He seems to genuinely believe that he’s the only person who can achieve this vision,” she said.

In last fall’s Communist Party congress, Mr Xi even presented China as a new model for the developing world — a thinly veiled argument that the US and Europe were no longer as attractive as they once were.

The need for a strong grip appears to be a long-held conviction of Mr Xi’s.

According to a 2009 diplomatic cable disclosed by WikiLeaks, an old associate told the US ambassador in Beijing at the time, Mr Jon Huntsman Jr, that as a son of one of China’s communist revolutionary leaders, Mr Xi was an elitist who believed deeply in the unwavering authority of the party.

“One cannot entirely escape one’s past,” the associate said. “Xi does not want to.” THE NEW YORK TIMES