Xi's Road to Indefinite Rule Through Rule-Making

China’s Communist Party instituted term limits after Mao Zedong’s death in 1976, to ensure that a future Chinese leader wouldn’t rule for life and cement the kind of cult of personality Mao had. Those term limits—up to two consecutive five-year terms—have endured through the reigns of  Hua Guofeng, Deng Xiaoping, Jiang Zemin, and Hu Jintao. But now, in the reign of Xi Jinping, they may be on their way out.

The party Sunday a change to the constitution that would abolish term limits, essentially giving Xi the authority to rule for life. Xi, who completes his first term in office next month, emerged as China’s most powerful leader since Deng, who ushered China’s economic reforms, at the Communist Party Congress last October. The party enshrined his “thought”  into its constitution, an