Is China on its way to dictatorship?

China “Edges Closer” to One-Man Rule

China’s future is “largely in the hands of just one man” after President Xi Jinping failed to include a clear successor as he unveiled the new line-up to the Communist Party’s Politburo Standing Committee, the party’s key decision-making entity, write Chun Han Wong and Jeremy Page for the Wall Street Journal. Indeed, the move has pushed the country “closer to resurrecting one-man rule.”

“The parade of the seven-man Politburo Standing Committee onto a red-carpeted podium in Beijing’s Great Hall of the People was the climax of a twice-a-decade process that placed Mr. Xi on a par with Mao in the party constitution and positioned him as pre-eminent leader even beyond his second five-year term,” they write.

“Concentrating such power in Mr. Xi -- who can now make policy and personnel choices virtually uncontested -- draws to an emphatic end an era of collective leadership. It also represents a historic gamble.”

Power to the diplomats. President Xi has further empowered the diplomats driving his foreign policy vision, promoting top diplomat Yang Jiechi to the 25-member Politburo, one rung below the Politburo Standing Committee, writes Shi Jiangtao for the South China Morning Post.

“The move not only recognizes Yang’s ability and personal contribution to implementing Xi’s assertive foreign policy, but also provides a boost to China’s diplomatic establishment as the country seeks to expand its interests and influence in the Asia-Pacific region and beyond,” analysts said.
China’s Communist Party: No place for women, apparently. “Mao Zedong, may have once said that women ‘hold up half the sky’ but when the twice-a-decade party congress selected a new batch of top leaders this week, females weren’t holding up much at all,” writes John Ruwitch for Reuters.
“No women made it onto the elite Politburo Standing Committee, the group of seven men at the pinnacle of the party. None ever have,” Ruwitch says.

“In the new Politburo, only one of its 25 members is a woman -- Sun Chunlan, head of the party body charged with outreach to non-Communists. It is her second term and she is likely to retire in five years. On the previous Politburo, there were two women, Sun and Vice Premier Liu Yandong -- who is past retirement age and has stepped down from the Politburo.”

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