BEIJING —
President Xi Jinping is expected
to be handed a historic third term in control of China on October 23, it
emerged on Saturday, after a spokesman confirmed the Communist Party’s 20th
Congress will end the previous day.
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About 2,300 party delegates from every province will
gather at the Great Hall of the People in
Beijing from Sunday for the mostly
closed-door conclave, to rubber-stamp the country’s next leadership make-up.
The five-yearly talking shop will get under way at
10am with an opening ceremony, after which Xi is expected to deliver a lengthy
speech that will give an assessment of the previous term, as well as a roadmap
for the next five years.
Should everything go to plan, after the week-long
meeting, 69-year-old Xi will be reconfirmed as the party’s general secretary,
cementing his position as China’s most powerful leader since Mao Zedong.
At the highly choreographed meeting, the 2,296
participants will also pick members of the party’s roughly 200-member Central
Committee, which in turn selects the 25-person Politburo and its all-powerful
Standing Committee — the country’s highest leadership body.
The day after Congress closes, the new Standing
Committee — currently a group of seven men including General Secretary Xi —
should be revealed, if this year follows the same convention as previous
Congresses.
Congress spokesman Sun Yeli confirmed the closing
date of October 22 and told reporters: “The preparations for the Congress have
now been fully completed.”
During the two-hour press conference — in which
Chinese state media asked several questions, as well as some international
outlets — Sun said the proportion of female delegates had increased to 27
percent, from 24 percent at the last Congress in 2017.
There were no questions asked about Xi.
China is holding Sunday’s opening ceremony under a
strict zero-COVID policy, sealing organizers and journalists in a virus-secure
bubble two days in advance.
Participants have been ordered to take daily
COVID-19 tests to attend events, some of which are being held remotely by video
link instead of in person.
At a hotel in western Beijing, organizers have set
up a press center crammed with exhibitions extolling Xi, festooned in the
Communist Party’s signature red and gold.
Scattered around the venue are tables piled with
books on Xi’s philosophy and China’s development, while one display features an
AI-driven “digital human” that tells jokes and sings songs upon request.
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