The Communist Party of China said on Sunday that it had chosen every delegate to the important political gathering beginning on October 16 where President Xi Jinping is anticipated to win a historic third term.
A change in leadership will also occur in the 25-member Politburo, the party’s strong decision-making body, during the twice-per-decade conclave.
According to state broadcaster CCTV, “each electoral unit around the country had a party congress or party representative conference and chose 2,296 delegates to the 20th Party Congress.”
The party constitution as well as Xi’s political philosophy must be followed by the delegates.
Women, members of ethnic minority parties, and experts in a variety of sectors, including economics, science, and sports, are among the representatives, according to CCTV.
The congress is taking place in the Chinese capital of Beijing at a time when Xi is dealing with serious political challenges, such as a failing economy, deteriorating ties with the United States, and a strict zero-covid policy that has accelerated China’s turn inward and away from the rest of the world.
On the political calendar of China, the congress is the most significant event. It provides clues about the direction the second-largest economy in the world may go in the near future and the degree of influence Xi wields over the party, which has millions of members.
The approximately 2,300 delegates from every province and region will select the roughly 200 members of the party’s Central Committee in a carefully orchestrated process.
The 25-member Politburo and its supreme Standing Committee—highest China’s leadership body and center of power, currently made up of seven people—will thereafter be chosen by the Central Committee.
The Politburo and its Standing Committee’s pecking order is likely to have been established well in advance since voting is largely a formality. It is not yet known how long the congress will last altogether.
A democracy movement in Hong Kong was crushed under Xi’s ten-year rule, and draconian lockdowns on cities were implemented in the guise of containing the coronavirus. Analysts claim these actions helped bring down his political adversaries.
His draconian practices in the northwest region of Xinjiang, where an estimated one million Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities have been jailed in a massive crackdown ostensibly targeting “terrorism,” have drawn heavy criticism from the international world for his treatment of human rights.
Additionally, he ushered in a confrontational “Wolf Warrior” foreign policy that alienated several regional neighbors as well as Western democracies, and he promoted closer ties with Russia while fueling nationalism at home.
In order to prevent the return of another Mao-style dictatorship, former leader Deng Xiaoping instituted the presidential two-term limit, which he overturned in 2018 and opened the door to his assuming permanent power.
