New Delhi: Chinese President Xi Jinping is trying to block the promotion of a potential successor and wants to remain in office for another term, the Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday, quoting insiders of the Chinese Communist Party.
“Mr. Xi, who is president, party chief and military commander, wants to keep going after 2022 and to explore a leadership structure just like the Putin model,” the paper quoted says one party official as saying who meets regularly with top leaders.
Xi, who succeeded Hu Jintao as the Chinese President in 2012, is nearing the end of his five-year term.
The paper also said Xi has “taken personal charge of the economy, the armed forces and most other levers of power, overturning a collective-leadership system introduced to protect against one-man rule after the death of Mao Zedong in 1976.”
This is in sharp contrast to the Hu regime that believed in a more collaborative approach and collective responsibility.
President Xi was recently anointed as the "core" leader of China's ruling Communist Party, conferring on him a status similar to that of party founder 'Chairman' Mao Zedong and allowing him to further tighten his grip on the party, military, and government.
Sixty-three-year-old Xi also heads the party as general-secretary of the CPC, and the military besides the presidency. The move to make Xi the "core" leader has given him greater influence over the looming top reshuffle of the party late next year, analysts say.
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