CHINESE COMMUNIST PARTY PROPOSES NO MORE TERM LIMITS FOR CHINA’S PRESIDENT: How convenient for Xi Jinping.

In a short release, the state-run Xinhua News Agency said that the Central Committee had proposed to remove from the country’s constitution the expression that the president and vice president “shall serve no more than two consecutive terms.”

It said the proposal was made public Sunday, a day ahead of a scheduled meeting of the Central Committee. It was unclear why the announcement was made ahead of that meeting.

Xi, 64, was approved to begin his second five-year term late last year and is slated to step down in 2022. But many analysts believe he wants to stay in office longer.

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Xi, as the son of a famed Communist Party veteran, is known as a “princeling.” He rose through the ranks to the position of Shanghai’s party leader in 2007 before being promoted the same year to the all-powerful Politburo Standing Committee. A year later, in a sign that he would succeed then-leader Hu Jintao, he was tapped to be vice president.

Since his elevation to the presidency in 2012, Xi has overseen a wide-ranging crackdown on corruption that has helped him eliminate rivals and consolidate his grip on power.

A Chinese princeling. So we’re witnessing his transition Chinese emperor? Maoism. Stalinism. What’s the difference? They’re all absolute monarchies.