Xi Jinping set to secure unprecedented third term as China’s leader

Xi Jinping’s choice of region to be a delegate from is symbolic as until 2017 Guangxi was one of China’s poorest provinces. The region lifted all its 54 poverty-stricken counties out of poverty in November, 2020.

BEIJING: President Xi Jinping, who is set to secure a unprecedented third term as China’s leader in a leadership reshuffle later this year, was elected on Friday by unanimous vote as a delegate to the 20th national congress of the ruling party at the Communist Party of China Guangxi regional congress.

A screen shows Chinese President Xi Jinping delivering a keynote speech at the opening ceremony of the Boao Forum for Asia via video link, at a media centre in Boao, Hainan province, China. (REUTERS/FILE)

In China, CPC leaders are essentially selected and Xi becoming a delegate was more of a formality.

“The CPC congress of the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region was held from Thursday to Friday in the regional capital of Nanning,” official news agency Xinhua said in a report on Friday evening.

“The announcement of Xi’s unanimous election won a burst of sustained and warm applause at the regional congress on Friday morning,” the report said.

Xi’s choice of region to be a delegate from is symbolic as until 2017 Guangxi was one of China’s poorest provinces. The region, which is home to the country’s largest ethnic minority population, lifted all its 54 poverty-stricken counties out of poverty in November, 2020.

The last eight impoverished counties in the region, including six ethnic minority autonomous counties, eliminated absolute poverty, the regional government had announced in November, 2020.

Guangxi is now considered a symbol of China’s successful poverty eradication programme, which has lifted millions over the poverty line in the past decades.

Xi was similarly elected as a delegate to CPC’s 19th National Congress by an expectedly unanimous vote at the 12th CPC Guizhou provincial congress in April 2017.