 Consolidation of the PRC’s Leadership Succession System from Hu Jintao to Xi JinpingYijiang Ding China Report, 2015, vol. 51, issue 1, 49-65 Abstract: The People’s Republic of China went through a peaceful and orderly transfer of power from November 2012 to March 2013, the second one in its 64-year history. The first one was the 2002–3 change of leadership from Jiang Zemin to Hu Jintao. While largely following the same pattern, the recent leadership change, from Hu Jintao to Xi Jinping, illustrated a few interesting and potentially significant differences even as the succession system was further consolidated. This article compares the recent leadership change with the previous one, analyses the differences and discusses their political implications. The increasingly institutionalised procedure for China’s leadership succession now features the state leaders’ tenure being limited to two consecutive five-year terms, and the choice of successors through a gradually broadening elite consensus. For the Chinese Communist Party, the purpose of the term limit is to prolong its one-party rule by having orderly power transfers and avoiding succession crises. The limited term of office is likely to contribute to China’s political stability while promoting a degree of institutionalised intra-party factional competition. Keywords: China; transfer of power; succession system; limited term of office; political development (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:chnrpt:v:51:y:2015:i:1:p:49-65 Access Statistics for this article More articles in China Report |
Is your work missing from RePEc? Here is how to contribute.
Questions or problems? Check the EconPapers FAQ or send mail to .
EconPapers is hosted by the
School of Business at Örebro University.