CHINA-LEADERSHIP: OPPOSITION TO ABOLITION OF TWO TERM RESTRICTION ON POSTS OF PRC PRESIDENT AND VICE
In a statement on WeChat on February 25, 2018 addressed to Beijing’s Deputies to China’s National People's Congress (NPC), Li Datong, a former editor for the state-run China Youth Daily, wrote that lifting term limits would “sow the seeds of chaos. If there are no term limits on a country’s highest leader, then we are returning to an imperial regime. My generation has lived through Mao. That era is over. How can we possibly go back to it?” He ended with a call to the NPC Deputies not to vote in support of the bill. Separately, Wang Ying, a businesswoman who has advocated for government reforms, wrote on WeChat that the Communist Party’s proposal was “an outright betrayal” and "against the tides.” She said “I know that you (the government) will dare to do anything and one ordinary person’s voice is certainly useless. But I am a Chinese citizen, and I don’t plan on leaving. This is my motherland too!”
(Comment: The authorities promptly deleted the WeChat posts but not before they had been shared thousands of times.)
|