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Bloomberg
China’s leading policy makers plan to discuss next month a proposal to amend the national constitution for the first time since 2004, the official Xinhua News Agency said.
The decision was made on Wednesday at a Politburo meeting headed by President Xi Jinping, according to the report. It provided no details on the possible change to the constitution, which was first adopted in 1982 and revised four times. The party’s Central Committee will discuss the amendments at a plenum some time in January.
Speculation has swirled that Xi might seek to stay in office beyond 2022 after he unveiled a new leadership line-up in October that didn’t include a clear potential heir. Under the current national constitution, the president can only serve two five-year terms. There are no limits on Xi’s two other key titles: Head of the party and military chief.
Any change involving term limits would require consensus among lawmakers, according to Ji Weidong, dean of Shanghai Jiao Tong University’s KoGuan School of Law. Either way, he said a constitutional revision is needed to set up the new National Supervision Commission, an all-encompassing anti-graft body.