Leaders of China’s ruling Communist Party on Thursday set the stage for President Xi Jinping to extend his rule next year, praising his role in the country’s rise as an economic and strategic power and approving a political history that gives him status alongside the most important party figures.
Central Committee members declared Xi’s ideology the “essence of Chinese culture” as they wrapped up a leadership meeting. In unusually effusive language even for a Chinese leader, a party statement said it was “of decisive significance” for “the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation.”
Xi, who has amassed more personal authority than any leader since at least Deng Xiaoping in the 1980s, has widely been expected to pursue a third five-year term as party general secretary. That would break with a two-decade-old party tradition that would require the 68-year-old leader to step down next year.
The party leadership’s resolution on its history is only the third since its founding 100 years ago, following one under Mao Zedong, the first leader of the Communist government, and another under Deng.