Does Unlimited Presidential Term Truly Matter for Xi Jinping?
By Wen Rixin
***
The 2018 constitutional amendment abolishing presidential term limits in China is widely seen as enabling Xi Jinping’s indefinite rule. This interpretation, however, overstates the institutional significance of the change. In China’s party-state system, political authority has never primarily originated from the state presidency, but from control over the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the military. This essay argues that the amendment does not fundamentally transform the foundations of Xi’s power; rather, it codifies an existing political reality. At the same time, the change is far from inconsequential: it matters primarily as an institutional signal and consolidation of power collected and accumulated elsewhere. Constitutionally, symbolically, and internationally, it reinforces personalist rule, weakens already fragile succession norms, and reshapes expectations about China’s political future.
Introduction
This May saw U.S. President Donald Trump make his first state visit to China since returning to the White House for a second term. To many outsiders, the meeting between Trump and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping showed two of the world’s most influential politicians coming together to discuss major issues and strike deals with global implications. This intuitive comparison of the two presidents, however, obscures a reality unfamiliar to the West that the Chinese presidency is not the locus of political authority.
Western observers tend to understand the presidency through an institutional lens: the chief executive job in presidential systems. Against this backdrop, the CCP’s proposal in early 2018 to amend the state constitution—most conspicuously by abolishing the two-term limit on the presidency—quickly became a focal point for scholars seeking to understand Chinese political trends under Xi Jinping. To many, the amendment marked a turning point in China’s development, signaling a radical break with the norms of term-limit leadership in post-Mao reform era.
Such an impression is not totally incorrect, yet the assumption that Xi exercises his political powers through the presidential office misreads Chinese political reality: under the party‑state system, true administrative authority does not flow from the state presidency unless the same officeholder also maintains the top authority over the Party and armed forces. This raises a critical question: does the removal of presidential term limits meaningfully strengthen Xi’s power?
This essay examines the institutional logic of China’s party‑state system, the evolving role of the presidency, and the political contexts that allowed Xi to pursue indefinite rule. It argues that while the presidency does not alter the foundation of Xi’s power, the removal of term limits nonetheless carries significant constitutional, symbolic, and international implications.
Party Organ versus State Office
The Chinese political system is defined by the dominance of the CCP over the state apparatus. The Party sets policy direction, controls elite appointments, and commands the People’s Liberation Army (PLA); the state bureaucracy implements Party decisions. Within this polity, the presidency has historically been a source of limited political authority, responsible for meeting foreign dignitaries, signing legislation passed by the National People’s Congress (NPC) and symbolically representing the nation.
The 1982 Constitution introduced term limits for the presidency as well as the premiership, but the Party’s constitution imposed no similar constraints on its own top leading posts through which the occupant practically administered the Chinese state and society.
From this perspective, the existence—or removal—of a presidential term limit alone does not determine whether Xi would or could rule China indefinitely.
Why the Presidency Began to Matter
To understand why the presidency matters today, it is essential to examine how its role evolved after the 1990s.
The political weight of the presidency grew notably after Jiang Zemin assumed office in 1993. Two major changes elevated the importance of presidency. Domestically, Jiang already held the posts of CCP General Secretary and Central Military Commission (CMC) Chairman. Simultaneous occupation of the state presidency created an institutionally arranged managerial trinity and unified the Party, state, and military control under a single leader.
Internationally, the collapse of communist regimes in Eastern Europe and the ensuing dissolution of the Soviet Union weakened the international legitimacy of Communist Party leaders. The presidency provided an important vehicle for diplomatic engagement and outreach, enabling its holder to travel, speak, and negotiate overseas with greater legitimacy than the seat of General Secretary of the CCP itself could offer. As China integrated into the world, the presidency became a vital diplomatic instrument.
Although its domestic authority remained bureaucratically bounded and functionally limited, the office was no longer politically insignificant. It broadened the scope of leadership succession and also affected the symbolic hierarchy of national politics: during a leadership transition, an outgoing president may rank ahead of the incoming General Party Secretary, who formally serves as vice president, temporarily reversing the usual sequence of Party and state leadership in official ceremonies and media coverage.
Succession before Xi: Norms and Constraints
Chinese experts often describe the transfers of power from Jiang Zemin to Hu Jintao and then from Hu to Xi as two exemplary cases of peaceful power transitions. This assessment exaggerated the coherence and stability within these handovers: the Jiang–Hu transition was procedurally smooth but substantively incomplete, whereas the Hu–Xi transition was functionally comprehensive but politically disquieting.
Jiang Zemin did transfer the Party and state leadership to Hu Jintao; nevertheless, Jiang’s retention of the CMC chairmanship for an additional two years, entirely consistent with the Party constitution, made the power transition incomplete and severely constrained Hu’s authority.
Hu Jintao’s departure followed a different logic: he chose to relinquish all three top posts—Party, state, and military—to Xi Jinping, granting Xi full control over the state’s levers of power without delay. Hu’s decision most likely reflected a personal choice to withdraw from active duties, but it also prevented other senior leaders from intervening in state administration and policy matters during Xi’s early tenure, much as they had during Hu’s accession.
In both cases of succession, the presidential term limit played a role but was not decisive or sufficient on its own. Equally important was the presence of a clearly identifiable successor, elite consensus, and personal calculations. Fewsmith (2021) argued that an informal system of checks and balances contributed to a relatively stable equilibrium in the Party from the Deng period onward.
Xi Jinping’s Break with Precedent
A Changed Political Environment
The conditions Xi faced when extending his tenure differed sharply from those confronting his two predecessors. Xi came to power facing a growing slate of international and domestic challenges that set the conditions for Xi to strengthen the Party’s executive seat. The downfall of Bo Xilai just prior to the planned succession exposed fractures in consensus-based governance and highlighted the need for stronger central authority. Moreover, Hu’s complete power transfer equipped Xi with a clean mandate neither Jiang nor Hu himself had enjoyed at the inception of their terms. mandate neither Jiang nor Hu himself had enjoyed at the inception of their terms.
Xi capitalized on this environment by consolidating power swiftly and decisively. Soon after taking the top leadership position, Xi promulgated the Eight-Point Regulation, setting higher standards on the moral code and personal behavior of public officials. His promotion of Wei Fenghe, commander of the PLA Rocket Force, to full army general while Hu was still chairman of the CMC demonstrated Xi’s quick assertion of control over the military and signaled a clear departure from the cautious practices of collective leadership. Incrementally but effectively, Xi dismantled the very power sharing arrangements that had facilitated his ascendancy by making Xi's selection a product of negotiation and compromise between Party factions. Power at the top of the Chinese political system was increasingly concentrated in the hands of Xi and his associates.
Enhanced Discipline and Tightened Control
Through an expansive and relentless anti-corruption campaign, Xi weakened rival networks, disciplined senior officials, and reformed the military bureaucracy, consolidating his power to an unprecedented degree in the post-Mao era. The campaign functioned not only as a disciplinary tool and governance effort, but as a mechanism for political and bureaucratic reorganization as well.
One early achievement of Xi’s anti-corruption campaign was the establishment of the National Supervisory Commission (NSC) via the 2018 constitutional amendment. Sharing personnel, offices, and overlapping responsibilities with the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI), the NSC allows the Party to extend disciplinary oversight over all public employees. It offered a telling example of how the CCP’s power could be institutionalized through state channels and operations, further eroding the separation of power between the Party and state Deng enthusiastically advocated in the 1980s.
Xi’s sweeping anti-corruption campaign has left potential rivals practically disorganized and deeply anxious. Furthermore, the tradition of grooming a successor for the incumbent leader gradually disappeared: potential candidates have been removed through prosecution or internal marginalization.
Successful Constitutional Amendment
When Xi signaled his intent to stay in power beyond the conventional two-term period, no senior leader, including PLA general, was willing—or able—to voice their dissent openly. Two delegates voted against the change and three abstained, out of 2,964 deputies. The amendment removing presidential term limits was less the cause of Xi’s dominance than a consequence of it.
Five years later, in 2023, Xi Jinping was handed an unprecedented third term as Chinese president. This time, Xi Jinping was elected unanimously, which was partly attributable to his personal political dominance, but also had much to do with the fact that, by the time the NPC convened, he had already secured term renewal as CCP General Secretary and CMC Chairman within the Party. Had Xi attempted to amend Party and state constitutions simultaneously, he would probably have encountered far more forceful resistance.
Taken together, the absence of term limits in the Party’s own charter, Hu’s complete transfer of power, and Xi’s systematic anti-corruption campaign altered the political conditions under which the norm of limited-term leadership had previously operated.
Does the Change Truly Matter?
From a narrow institutional perspective, abolishing presidential term limits does not practically enhance Xi’s hold on power. The presidency has never been the chief source of political authority in China, and the CCP imposes no term limits on its leaders. Xi’s control over the Party and the military—not the presidency—constitutes the solid base of his rule.
Yet dismissing the 2018 amendment as merely symbolic would be mistaken: it legalized, personalized, institutionalized, and internationalized already-accumulated powers:
Constitutional: The amendment demonstrates the subordination of constitutional terms to political will, reinforcing the malleability of constitutional constraints, and paving the way to justify the Party’s governance with rule of law and constitutionality.
Personalist: It removes the last formal obstacle to Xi’s indefinite rule, entrenching personalist leadership.
Institutional: The premiership remains subject to term limit, deepening the asymmetry between Party and state and further subordinating the Chinese government to the Party’s leadership.
International: the termless state presidency enhances Xi’s diplomatic authority as China’s enduring representative on the world stage.
Collectively, these effects facilitate Xi’s ability to keep all three top posts and shape China’s domestic and international trajectory. 
Conclusion
The abolition of presidential term limits does not transform Xi Jinping into China’s supreme leader; that status rests on his control of the Party and the military. The amendment’s significance lies instead in its symbolic reinforcement of personalist rule and its erosion of expectations of orderly and peaceful succession in the post-Deng era.
Although Deng Xiaoping sought to normalize retirement practices and regularize leadership turnover, the post-1949 history of Chinese politics has shown the inconsistent pattern of power succession and weakness of the established rules: powerful leaders have repeatedly found ways to circumvent or rewrite them. The question of succession inevitably looms over China’s political future once Xi eventually leaves office. The constitutional change therefore postpones rather than resolves the problem of Chinese leadership—and may ultimately make the next transition more unpredictable and unstable.
Wen Rixin used to be a public official at a local government in Northeast China; he received his MPA from USC and PhD in public policy from Claremont Graduate University. His research focuses on how accountable institutions and systems ensure that state capacity consistently remains oriented toward the public good.
