Xu Zhangrun (許章潤, b. 1962)，who taught jurisprudence and constitutional law at Tsinghua University (until he was suspended March of 2019), in the summer of 2018 published an extensive critique of recent political trends in China. While not actually mentioning Xi Jinping by name, Xu rakes the general secretary over the coals, tearing down Xu’s program, mocking the “China Dream,” and targeting especially the elimination of “term limits” for the head of state. In the decades prior to the 19th Party Congress in 2018, the constitution limited the head of state (State Chairman, nowadays usually translated “President”) to two terms of five years each. This was removed in the spring of 2019. China’s head of state is pretty much a ceremonial office (the control of government operations is vested in the Premier of the State Council, and the real boss of the regime is the General Secretary of the Communist party, a position Xi Jinping holds as well as his State Chairmanship). The elimination of this term limit is, then, symbolic: it indicates Xi’s intention to remain as top boss indefinitely, perhaps for the rest of his life. Xu takes this as indicative of the end of the reform movement that began shortly after the death of Mao Zedong in 1976, a sign that China is moving backwards toward a Stalinist-Maoist totalitarian system. Continue reading Some Reflections on Xu Zhangrun’s “Our Current Fears and Expectations” (July 24 2019)