Xi 'emperor for life'? China now faces all the downsides of dictatorship

Xi's ascent surprising in the light of China's traditional norm of imperial rule, which effectively carried over into communism

China’s nearly 30-year experiment with time-limited government is officially coming to an end. The Chinese Communist Party has suggested amending China’s constitution to allow President Xi Jinping to serve more than two five-year terms. Considering that the party rules the country, and Xi rules the party, that means two things: The constitution will be amended. And Xi is going to be president for life, much like Mao Zedong or Deng Xiaoping.

From the standpoint of communism, this result isn’t terribly surprising. From Lenin to Stalin to Khrushchev, Brezhnev and Andropov, the Soviet Union was never out of the hands of