Skip to main content

China Communist Party enshrines ‘Xi Jinping Thought’ in constitution

BEIJING: China’s ruling Communist Party enshrined President Xi Jinping’s political thought into its constitution on Tuesday, putting him in the same company as the founder of modern China, Mao Zedong, and cementing his power ahead of a new top leadership line-up.
The party unanimously passed the amendment to include “Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era” as one of its guiding principles at the end of its week-long congress.The party will announce its new Standing Committee, the apex of power in China, around midday (0400 GMT) on Wednesday, culminating a twice-a-decade leadership reshuffle. The current committee is made up of seven people.
Also included in the amended constitution was the party’s “absolute” leadership over the military, that the fight against corruption will continue, Xi’s “Belt and Road” development initiative, supply-side reforms, and giving play to the “decisive role” of market forces in resource allocation.
“The congress holds that the leadership of the Communist Party of China is the most essential attribute of socialism with Chinese characteristics and the greatest strength of this system,” the party said in a statement.
“The party exercises overall leadership over all areas of endeavour in every part of the country,” it said.
Whether Xi was able to have his name “crowned” in the party constitution had been seen as a key measure of his power, elevating him to the level of previous leaders exemplified by Mao Zedong Thought and Deng Xiaoping Theory.
No other leader since Mao has had an eponymous ideology included in the document while in office. Deng’s name was added after his death in 1997.
Xi’s more recent predecessors, Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao, both had the party constitution amended to include their guiding thoughts, but without their names directly attached.
Jiang had his “Three Represents” embracing private entrepreneurs written in, while Hu, Xi’s immediate predecessor, had his economic doctrine of “scientific development” included.
Xi has rapidly consolidated power since assuming party leadership in late 2012 and then the presidency the next year.
The party gave Xi the title of “core” leader a year ago, a significant strengthening of his position ahead of the congress, which is held once every five years.
The party also announced a new Central Committee, the largest of its elite ruling bodies, that did not include anti-corruption tsar and current Standing Committee member Wang Qishan, meaning he will not be on the new Standing Committee.
However, he could be given another role that is not decided for a few months.
China’s top banking regulator, Guo Shuqing, and veteran banker Jiang Chaoliang, front runners to succeed Zhou Xiaochuan as central bank governor, both made it to the Central Committee.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Acharya appointed to NOC’s top post

The government has given the responsibility of the executive director of Nepal Oil Corporation (NOC) to Joint Secretary at Ministry of Supplies (MoS), Prem Prasad Acharya.A ministerial-level meeting at MoS today decided to give the responsibility of NOC’s top post to Acharya until further notice, according to Urmila KC, undersecretary at MoS. The post of executive director at NOC had become vacant after the government, on Monday, sacked the then executive director of the corporation Gopal Bahadur Khadka for his alleged involvement in financial irregularities while procuring land for the development of petroleum infrastructure.
Post a Comment
Read more

‘Clean India’ mission not ending manual scavenging, activists say

MUMBAI:  A flagship government program to modernise India’s sanitation has failed to tackle the practice of low caste women clearing faeces by hand, and has even exacerbated the problem by building toilets not connected to water supplies, campaigners say. Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan, or Clean India Mission, with much fanfare after he took office in 2014, sweeping a Delhi street with a broom. Since then, thousands of toilets have been built across the country.But Dalit communities, especially women, are still forced to be manual scavengers, a euphemism for clearing faeces from dry toilets and open drains by hand, despite laws to end the practice. The workers have it harder now, activists said. “Swachh Bharat has diverted attention from ending manual scavenging, and makes it seem like the whole country is cleaning. But if that’s the case, then why are people still dying in septic tanks,” said activist Bezwada Wilson. “There is also no dis...
Post a Comment
Read more

US trio win Nobel for finding Einstein’s gravitational waves

STOCKHOLM/LONDON:  Three US scientists won the 2017 Nobel prize for physics on Tuesday for opening up a new era of astronomy by detecting gravitational waves, ripples in space and time foreseen by Albert Einstein a century ago. The work of Rainer Weiss, Barry Barish and Kip Thorne crowned half a century of experimental efforts by scientists and engineers.Measuring gravitational waves offers a new way to observe the cosmos, helping scientists explore the nature of mysterious objects including black holes and neutron stars. It may also provide insight into the universe’s very earliest moments. The first detection of the waves created a scientific sensation when it was announced early last year and the teams involved in the discovery had been widely seen as favourites for Tuesday’s prize. “We now witness the dawn of a new field: gravitational wave astronomy,” Nils Martensson, acting chairman of the Nobel Committee for Physics, told reporters. “This will teach us about the ...
Post a Comment
Read more