China’s Communist party will meet next month to deliberate revisions to the country’s state constitution that would mark the document’s first amendments since 2004.
In a brief dispatch, state news agency Xinhua said the 19th Central Committee, comprised of the party’s 200 most powerful officials, would discuss unspecified constitutional amendments in January.
Analysts said any changes would probably be relatively routine, such as formally adding “Xi Jinping Thought” to the constitution’s preamble or paving the way for the merging of the state and party anti-graft bodies. But the announcement could also stoke speculation that Mr Xi will seek to end a two-term limit on the presidency.
At a congress in October that marked the start of Mr Xi’s second five-year term as party general secretary, amendments to the party’s own founding charter enhanced his already tight grip on political power.
Mr. Xi’s eponymous doctrine on “socialism with Chinese characteristics for a new era” was declared, marking the president’s determination for China to take a greater role on the global stage and establish itself as one of the world’s richest economies by 2050.
It is expected that similar ideological revisions will be made to the state constitution when China’s parliament, the National People’s Congress, meets in March.
While there is no term limit on senior party positions, the state constitution imposes a two-term limit on the presidency. Mr Xi’s second will end in 2023.
“This revision is supposed to add Xi Jinping Thought into the constitution,” said Zhang Lifan, a Beijing-based historian and prominent critic of party rule in China. But Mr Zhang added that Mr Xi’s ambitions would be “too obvious” if he attempted to revoke the presidential term limit next year.
Jean-Pierre Cabestan, a Chinese politics expert at Hong Kong Baptist University, also noted that there was no hint of such a potentially significant change at the party congress in October. “The party delegates didn’t say a word about it,” he said.
China’s state constitution has not been changed since 2004, when it was amended to promise that the government would protect private property and human rights.
This followed earlier changes to the constitution’s preamble to include former President Jiang Zemin’s “three represents” doctrine, which for the first time welcomed private businessmen and women to join the party after decades of Maoist class war and exclusion.
China’s constitution may also be revised to facilitate the creation of a powerful Supervisory Commission. The new body will effectively transform the party’s internal graft watchdog, the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, into a superagency with broad powers over all officials in government bureaus and state-owned enterprises.(ft)