China's Xi awarded third term as president, extending rule

BEIJING — Chinese leader Xi Jinping was awarded a third five-year term as president Friday, putting him on track to stay in power for life.

The endorsement of Xi's appointment by the ceremonial National People's Congress was a foregone conclusion for a leader who has sidelined potential rivals and filled the top ranks of the ruling Communist Party with his supporters since taking power in 2012.

The vote for Xi was 2,952 to 0 by the NPC, members of which are appointed by the ruling party.

Xi, 69, had himself named to a third five-year term as party general secretary in October, breaking with a tradition under which Chinese leaders handed over power once a decade. A two-term limit on the figurehead presidency was deleted from the Chinese constitution earlier, prompting suggestions he might stay in power for life.

No candidate lists were distributed, and Xi and those awarded other posts were believed to have run unopposed. The election process remains almost entirely shrouded in secrecy, apart from the process by which delegates to the congress placed four ballots into boxes placed around the vast auditorium of the Great Hall of the People.

Xi was also unanimously named commander of the 2 million-member People's Liberation Army, a force that explicitly takes its orders from the party rather than the country.

In other voting, the party's third-ranking official Zhao Leji was named head of the National People's Congress. The vast majority of the body's legislative work is headed by its Standing Committee, which meets year-round.

A holdover from the previous party Politburo Standing Committee, the apex of political power in China headed by Xi, Zhao, 67, won Xi’s trust as head of the party’s anti-corruption watchdog, the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, pursuing an anti-graft campaign that has frozen all potential opposition to the leader.

Former Shanghai party boss and member of the last Politburo Standing Committee Han Zheng was named to the largely ceremonial post of state vice president.

Xi, Zhao and Han then took the oath of office with one hand on a copy of the Chinese constitution.