Content adapted from this Zerohedge.com article : Source
China is about to name an emporer for life.
The Communist Party in China is about to do away with the two-term constitutional limit allowing President Xi Jinping to rule for life.
This is not a complete surprise since it follows the decision last Ocotober to omit naming a successor. The move by the Community Party will put Jonping's name on the consistitution, the first living leader to have that honory.
According to the NY Times, the constitution was amended last month although details were not released.
In another victory for Mr. Xi, the draft amendments to the Constitution would also add his trademark expression for his main ideas - "Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era" - into the preamble of the Constitution, as well as adding a nod to the ideological contributions of his predecessor, Mr. Hu.
The amendments are almost certain to be passed into law by the party-controlled legislature, the National People's Congress, which holds its annual full session from March 5. The congress has never voted down a proposal from party leaders.
This move will only make the power absolute for the already powerful leader. Any resistence to his rule is now gone. All will have to get on board with his agenda since there is no way of knowing how long his rule will last.
At the same party congress, Mr. Xi conspicuously broke with precedent by choosing not to name a pair of much younger officials to the Politburo's ruling inner circle, the seven-member standing committee, to serve as his heirs-in-waiting. Instead, Mr. Xi chose men — no women — who were closer to his own age or older.
Mr. Xi's strongman style has been compared to that of the Russian president, Vladimir V. Putin. But even Mr. Putin, who has amassed considerable personal power, did not try to erase his country's constitutional limit on serving more than two consecutive terms as president as he approached that limit in 2008.
Instead, he arranged for a close adviser with limited personal influence, Dmitri A. Medvedev, to serve as president for a single term while Mr. Putin held the post of prime minister. Mr. Putin then returned to the presidency in 2012, and is running this year for re-election to another term.
Mr. Xi may now have even greater power, and the question will be how he chooses to use it.
"Xi Jinping is susceptible to making big mistakes because there are now almost no checks or balances," said Willy Lam, an adjunct professor at the Chinese University of Hong Kong who is the author of a biography of Mr. Xi in 2015. "Essentially, he has become emperor for life."
It is good to be the King.