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ABSOLUTE POWER: Emperor for Life — Trump will be “bigly” jealous…

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Author Topic: ABSOLUTE POWER: Emperor for Life — Trump will be “bigly” jealous…  (Read 454 times)
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Kiwithrottlejockey
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« on: February 27, 2018, 08:55:58 pm »


from The New York Times....

China Moves to Let Xi Stay in Power by Abolishing Term Limit

The Communist Party has proposed revising the Constitution to end a two-term limit,
which would let Xi Jinping remain president, perhaps indefinitely.


By CHRIS BUCKLEY and KEITH BRADSHER | Sunday, February 25, 2018

The Communist Party is abolishing limits on presidential terms, effectively allowing President Xi Jinping to lead China indefinitely. — Photograph: Mark Schiefelbein/Associated Press.
The Communist Party is abolishing limits on presidential terms, effectively allowing President Xi Jinping to lead China indefinitely.
 — Photograph: Mark Schiefelbein/Associated Press.


BEIJING — China's Communist Party has cleared the way for President Xi Jinping to stay in power indefinitely, by announcing on Sunday that it intends to abolish term limits on the presidency, a momentous break with decades-old rules meant to prevent the country from returning to the days when Mao was shown cultish obedience.

The surprise move, revealed in a dryly worded proposal to amend the Constitution, is the boldest yet by Mr. Xi as he seeks to strengthen the party's control over a modernizing society and restore China to what he considers its rightful place as a global power — an agenda that his allies have suggested requires his personal leadership.

He has pressed China's claims over the South China Sea, begun a global infrastructure plan called the Belt and Road initiative, drastically reorganized the military, bulked up domestic security and enforced ideological purity in schools and media — all parts of his vision of China as a prosperous, respected player on the world stage that stays faithful to its Communist and Confucian roots.

The timing of the announcement startled even experienced observers of Chinese politics: Mr. Xi completes his first term as president next month and could have waited until late in his second term to act. He also could have stepped down after his second term and run the country from behind the scenes, as some of his predecessors have.

The move alarmed advocates of political liberalization in China who saw it as part of a global trend of strongman leaders casting aside constitutional checks, like Vladimir V. Putin in Russia and Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Turkey.

The Constitution now limits Mr. Xi, who became president in 2013, to two terms in that office, amounting to 10 years. But the party leadership has proposed removing the line that says the president and vice president “shall serve no more than two consecutive terms,” Xinhua, the official news agency, reported on Sunday.

By moving so early in his tenure, Mr. Xi, 64, is in effect proclaiming that he intends to stay in office well past 2023, overturning rules of succession in Chinese politics that evolved as the party sought stability following the power struggles to replace first Mao, and then Deng Xiaoping.

“Xi Jinping will certainly continue,” said Zhang Ming, a retired historian at Renmin University in Beijing. “In China, he can do what he wants to do, and this is just sending a clearer signal of that.”

Mr. Xi already serves as the party's general secretary and the military chief, positions with no term limits.

“This is the next step in the continuing breakdown of political norms that had held sway in China's reform era,” said Carl Minzner, a professor of law at Fordham University in New York and author of a new book on Mr. Xi's increasing authoritarianism.

“What are the risks of these shifts?” Professor Minzner said. “In the short term, all the traditional dangers that arise from the excessive centralization of power in the hands of one person. But in the long term, the real question is how far the breakdown in political norms could go.”

Jiang Zemin, the leader who succeeded Deng, was installed during the Tiananmen protests of 1989 and served two terms as president from 1993 to 2003. But he lingered in power until 2004 by retaining control of the committee that runs China's military.

His successor, Hu Jintao, stepped down from all his positions after his two terms — an example that some experts had expected Mr. Xi to follow.

But as Mr. Xi's first term comes to an end, few in China see much likelihood of his power being subdued anytime soon by rivals in the leadership elite.

“Xi is now unfettered. He owns the entire policy process,” Susan Shirk, the head of the 21st Century China Center at the University of California, San Diego, wrote in a forthcoming paper about politics under Mr. Xi. “And Chinese domestic and foreign policy is only as restrained or aggressive as he wants it to be. The risk of policy misjudgments is greater than it has been under any other leader since Mao died.”

During his first term, Mr. Xi pressed an aggressive campaign against corruption and dissent, a crackdown that has silenced potential rivals in the leadership. At the same time, many party elders, who once held intimidating influence, have died or are too old for political intrigue. Mr. Jiang is 91, and Mr. Hu, 75, has shown no appetite for taking on Mr. Xi.


President Xi Jinping of China at the Communist Party congress in Beijing last October. Current law restricts the president to two terms. — Photograph: How Hwee Young/European Pressphoto Agency.
President Xi Jinping of China at the Communist Party congress in Beijing last October. Current law restricts the president to two terms.
 — Photograph: How Hwee Young/European Pressphoto Agency.


On the Chinese internet, some people eluded the party's censors and mocked Mr. Xi's ambitions by sharing images like that of Winnie the Pooh — portly like Mr. Xi, and used by critics to represent him — hugging a huge jar of honey.

But many people in China have applauded his campaign against official corruption. And harsh security measures make mass protests against a central leader nearly impossible. So any major public backlash against Mr. Xi's move appears unlikely.

“I don't see any reasonable challenges for him,” Wu Qiang, a political analyst in Beijing who formerly taught at Tsinghua University, said of Mr. Xi. “He has removed any potential political competitors. So far, there is no organized political competition for him.”

The proposed constitutional changes were released in the name of the Central Committee, a council of hundreds of senior party officials, who will meet starting on Monday for three days.

Mr. Xi had already built expectations that he would stay in office past two terms, and some analysts said he must have decided to move while at peak political strength. Usually, authority begins to ebb from Chinese leaders as retirement nears.

“I can see where his thinking is that he's riding high, he’s got the momentum, and took the initiative to ram this through,” said Jude Blanchette, an expert on Chinese politics in Beijing who works for the Conference Board, which provides research for companies. “Why risk diminished power three years from now if the economy tanks or there's a conflagration with North Korea, and not have the ability to do it?”

In another victory for Mr. Xi, the draft amendments to the Constitution would 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 proposed amendments would also authorize a new anticorruption commission that Mr. Xi has pushed. The commission would expand the reach of corruption investigations, which up to now have mostly been conducted by a Communist Party agency acting largely beyond the law.

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 starting on March 5. The congress has never voted down a proposal from party leaders.

In what would be another break with tradition, Wang Qishan, a close ally of Mr. Xi in his campaign against corruption and disloyalty in the party, appears set to return to power as vice president. Mr. Wang, 69, stepped down from a party position last year because of his age.

The abolition of the term limit may also explain another recent move by Mr. Xi  to send one of his closest advisers, Liu He, to Washington on Tuesday. While that trip had initially looked like an attempt to discuss the Trump administration's tougher rhetoric on trade, it now seems likely to also be a mission to explain Mr. Xi's plans to American leaders.

At the Communist Party national congress in October, 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 potential heirs. 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. But even Mr. Putin did not try to erase his country's constitutional limit on serving more than two consecutive terms as president when he approached that limit in 2008.

Instead, he arranged for a close adviser, 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.

With Mr. Xi's hold on power now seems unquestioned for the foreseeable future, the biggest question will be how he chooses to wield 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 2015 biography of Mr. Xi. “Essentially, he has become Emperor for Life.”


__________________________________________________________________________

Javier C. Hernández contributed reporting from Beijing and Jane Perlez from Hong Kong. Additional research by Adam Wu in Beijing.

• Chris Buckley is a reporter for The New York Times and has been based in China for over a decade. His coverage has included politics, foreign policy, rural issues, human rights, the environment, and climate change. Previously, he reported for Reuters. He received a doctorate in Chinese studies from Australian National University.

• Keith Bradsher is the Pulitzer Prize-winning Shanghai bureau chief for The New York Times, having reopened the Shanghai bureau on November 14th, 2016. He has previously served as the Hong Kong bureau chief and the Detroit bureau chief for The Times. Before those postings, he was a Washington correspondent for The Times covering the Federal Reserve and international trade, and a New York-based business reporter covering transportation and telecommunications for The Times. Born in 1964, Mr. Bradsher received a degree in economics from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he was a Morehead Scholar. He received a master's degree in public policy with a concentration in economics from the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton University. Prior to joining The New York Times, Mr. Bradsher wrote for the Los Angeles Times from 1987 until 1989.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/25/world/asia/china-xi-jinping.html
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Im2Sexy4MyPants
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« Reply #1 on: February 28, 2018, 03:22:49 pm »

you would love china
move there
they have trains lol
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Are you sick of the bullshit from the sewer stream media spewed out from the usual Ken and Barby dickless talking point look a likes.

If you want to know what's going on in the real world...
And the many things that will personally effect you.
Go to
http://www.infowars.com/

AND WAKE THE F_ _K UP
Kiwithrottlejockey
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« Reply #2 on: March 01, 2018, 11:43:52 am »


Yep.....long after Trump is but a mere annoying pimple in the history of U.S. presidents (and most likely either banged up in jail, or else hiding in exile), Emperor Xi Jinping will continue to preside over the superpower which ousted America as the world's top-dog superpower.
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« Reply #3 on: March 01, 2018, 12:06:56 pm »


from the print edition of the Los Angeles Times....

China's ire packs economic punch

Travel and other boycotts over U.S. missile defense system have cost South Korea as much as $15 billion.

By MATT STILES | Wednesday, February 28, 2018

Tourists visit Jeju Island in October. After China ordered domestic travel agencies to stop selling package deals to South Korea, the island saw a huge drop in the number of Chinese visitors. China's retaliation also hurt South Korean merchants and automakers. — Photograph: Yonhap.
Tourists visit Jeju Island in October. After China ordered domestic travel agencies to stop selling package deals to South Korea, the island saw a huge drop
in the number of Chinese visitors. China's retaliation also hurt South Korean merchants and automakers. — Photograph: Yonhap.


SEOUL — The bustling Myeongdong neighborhood has long been this city's most-visited tourist spot, a place where foreign shoppers fill rolling suitcases with South Korea's coveted cosmetics, clothing and electronics.

But over the last year even the street vendors have noticed a steep decline in sales.

“There aren't as many tourists to attract in the streets,” said 38-year-old Park Jeong-soo, who sells chicken skewers from a cart. “It was the worst at the end of last year.”

The reason: South Korea's new missile defense system, known as THAAD. China objects to it and has been flexing its economic muscle in protest, carrying out an aggressive campaign of economic retaliation that includes sending fewer tourists. In 2017, just over 4 million Chinese visited South Korea, down from roughly 8 million a year earlier after several years of steady growth.

“I don't know why we have to be the ones that suffer because of politics,” said Park. “I watch the news more closely now, especially about THAAD. In a sense, my livelihood depends on it.”

The Terminal High Altitude Area Defense was installed last spring on a former golf course in the country's south by South Korea's most important ally, the United States. The system is designed to shoot down medium-range missiles from North Korea over parts of South Korea.

China says the system's radar encroaches on its sovereignty and threatens its national security.

South Korean President Moon Jae-in has tried to patch things up, visiting Beijing in December and agreeing to not install any new missile systems or link the current one with the United States' overall defense network in Asia.

The meeting seemed to help, but merchants say the effects of the retaliation linger.

“They say THAAD retaliation is over, but I think it will take a while for us to recover,” said Han Soo-young, 42, a clothing store manager in Myeongdong. “I've lost a lot of customers since our relationship with China became worse. I have even had to get rid of employees, and now I run the store alone.”


The U.S. installed the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense system last spring on a former golf course in South Korea. China objected, saying the missile defense system's radar encroaches on its sovereignty. — Photograph: Agence France-Presse/Getty Images.
The U.S. installed the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense system last spring on a former golf course in South Korea. China objected, saying the missile
defense system's radar encroaches on its sovereignty. — Photograph: Agence France-Presse/Getty Images.


In addition to sending fewer tourists to South Korea, China also limited domestic distribution of South Korean entertainment, such as streaming of popular television shows and movies, according to a report by the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission.

The retaliation also reduced sales of South Korean cosmetics, which are enormously popular in China, and South Korean automobiles, with Hyundai and Kia seeing big drops in their exports to China.

South Korea's leading retail conglomerate, Lotte, which gave Seoul the land for the missile-defense system in a real-estate swap, has also been targeted, suffering cyberattacks and losing hundreds of millions of dollars in the closure of more than 70 of its stores in China because they failed to pass fire-safety inspections.

But South Korea's tourism industry perhaps suffered most, both economically and psychologically.

The decline began in March 2017, when the China National Tourism Administration ordered domestic travel agencies to stop selling package deals to South Korea.

It was obvious and immediate across the country, especially as the peak summer season opened in places such as Myeongdong, which was visited by 81% of all foreign tourists in 2016, according to a survey by the government's Tourism Ministry.

Given that Chinese tourists spend about $1,900 on average during a visit, the cost of China's travel restrictions could be as high as $15 billion, according the Hyundai Research Institute. The figure is a small fraction of South Korea's $1.4-trillion economy — the 11th largest in the world — but it hurt nonetheless.

Restaurant owners and hoteliers on South Korea's Jeju Island, once a popular beach destination for Chinese, saw their revenue decline precipitously. The island attracted about 1,200 visitors from China last year during the popular fall holiday known as Chuseok — down from roughly 8,800 visitors during the 2016 holiday.

Nationwide, Chinese visits during the holiday fell 87%, according to the island's tourism association.

The Korea Tourism Organization has tried to make up for the losses by focusing its marketing on countries in Southeast Asia as well as Chinese who are willing to travel independently and not as part of an organized tour group. But that has barely helped.

Business owners across the country, and particularly in Seoul, have been left to wonder why their companies were caught up in a geopolitical row.

Kim Ji-seon, who manages a cosmetics store, used to see so many Chinese customers — up to 40 a day — that she hired Chinese-speaking clerks to serve them. Now those workers might help 10 of them a day.

“Unfortunately we don't use Chinese that much anymore,” said Kim, 34. “There were very few Chinese tourists in Myeongdong this winter. Not a lot of people come into the stores. As you can see, it's empty right now.”


__________________________________________________________________________

• Matt Stiles is a special correspondent to the Los Angeles Times.

http://enewspaper.latimes.com/infinity/article_share.aspx?guid=6c19f2dd-6a13-4b78-a869-ac29caa72c6e
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« Reply #4 on: March 05, 2018, 01:09:12 pm »


Yep....Trump is jealous alright!



from The Washington Post....

In a jokey speech, Trump praised China's Xi for moving to end
term limits, saying, ‘Maybe we'll give that a shot someday’


Trump made the comment in a closed-door speech to donors at his Mar-a-Lago estate.

By AMANDA ERICKSON | 1:13PM EST — Sunday, March 04, 2018

President Donald J. Trump shakes hands with Chinese President Xi Jinping at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing. — Photograph: Fred Dufour/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images.
President Donald J. Trump shakes hands with Chinese President Xi Jinping at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing.
 — Photograph: Fred Dufour/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images.


TWO HUNDRED YEARS AGO, George Washington voluntarily gave up the presidency. No law required him to do so. Rather, Washington explained that a democratically elected leader should not lead for life. His decision established a precedent, formalized only in 1951, that U.S. presidents serve just two terms.

Experts around the world say term limits are an essential hallmark of a functional democracy, a tool to check corruption and promote accountability. In a 2015 speech in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, President Barack Obama told the African Union that democracy depends on limits. “Africa's democratic progress is also at risk when leaders refuse to step aside when their terms end,” Obama said.

On Saturday, President Trump hinted that he may have other ideas.

In a freewheeling speech to Republican donors at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida, Trump praised Chinese President Xi Jinping for ditching term limits. (A recording of the speech was obtained by CNN.)

Xi's Communist Party recently proposed scrapping the part of the Chinese constitution that limits presidents to no more than two terms. The proposal will almost certainly pass, meaning Xi could retain power after his second five-year term ends in 2023. “It is the strongest sign yet that Xi intends to hold on to power, potentially taking China back toward one-man rule,” my colleague Emily Rauhala noted.

Xi has shown a flair for authoritarianism in other ways, too — under his leadership, China has purged thousands of his political opponents, strangled civil society and established a 21st-century surveillance state. Not exactly the stuff of the American idyll.

But in his closed-door speech on Saturday, Trump joked about the term-limits move, saying Xi is now “president for life. President for life. No, he's great. And, look, he was able to do that. I think it's great.”

“Maybe we'll have to give that a shot someday,” Trump went on.

It's a strange jab from a leader who has earned a reputation as cozying up to dictators.

Trump has repeatedly praised Xi, as well as Russian President Vladimir Putin (Trump said Putin gets an “A” in leadership), Turkish leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte. Duterte's notorious war on drugs has killed thousands of people — most of them on the streets by police, with no opportunity for a fair trial or protection. In May, Trump said Duterte was doing an “unbelievable job on the drug problem.


__________________________________________________________________________

• Amanda Erickson writes about foreign affairs for The Washington Post. Previously, she worked as an editor for Outlook and PostEverything.

__________________________________________________________________________

Related to this topic:

 • Xi term-limits controversy looms at China political meeting

 • Xi Jinping's authoritarian rise in China has been powered by sexism


https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2018/03/04/in-a-jokey-speech-trump-praised-chinas-xi-for-ditching-term-limits-saying-maybe-well-give-that-a-shot-some-day
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