Is the Chinese Communist Party pulling a ‘Biden?’

It was a different China years ago. Ever since the 1990s, the one-party system of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) had followed a constitution limiting the country’s president to serving two terms. Traditionally, the outgoing president would introduce a potential successor before that second term ended. The process had worked remarkably well, providing for smooth transitions of power.

However, in 2018, before the second term of President Xi Jinping was to end in 2023, in its annual meeting, the National People’s Congress—China’s parliament—voted for a change. Either Xi was perceived to be good at his job or he was feared due to the power he wielded, but the parliament approved what was widely regarded as a rubber-stamp vote for the president to serve for life. The motivation for the change was undoubtedly the fear factor as Xi had amassed power not seen since the days of Chairman Mao Zedong.

To promote Xi’s image and authority further, his name and political ideology were enshrined “in the party’s constitution – elevating his status to the level of its founder, Chairman Mao.” Telling was the fact that, out of 2,964 votes cast on the issue of a lifetime term, only two objections and three abstentions were recorded. Thus, two years after he should have been out of office, Xi remained—and still remains.

As president for life, Xi did fight corruption, punishing over one million party members, which increased his popularity among the people. However, that was soon accompanied by initiatives to clamp down on their personal freedoms.

With time, things can change—and 2018 China is different from 2025 China. Accordingly, the changes between these two dates appear to be impacting upon Xi’s reign. Three experts on China—with very reliable records on which direction the leadership winds in Beijing are blowing—suggest Xi’s current authority is now nominal and that he may well be stepping down from his lifetime term in office. If so, it sounds much like President Joe Biden’s “voluntary” withdrawal from politics, only one made in China.

The China experts base this read on certain factors such as a resurgence of the sidelined Communist Youth League (CYL) faction, the purging of military figures close to Xi and the omission of the name of Xi’s father on a memorial honoring him as a communist revolutionary.

Of the above factors, the CYL faction story falls into the category of never calling a previous leader down and out.