ADVERTISEMENT

China's Term Limit Debate Is a Red Herring

China’s Term Limit Debate Is A Red Herring

China's Term Limit Debate Is a Red Herring
A pro-China protester holds a Chinese national flag during a pro-democracy rally in Hong Kong, China (A pro-China protester holds a Chinese national flag during a pro-democracy rally in Hong Kong, China).

(Bloomberg View) -- China's decision to amend its constitution, allowing Xi Jinping to remain president for life, looks superficially as though China is backsliding toward a dictatorship. But if that were so, Russian President Vladimir Putin's announcement that he'll do nothing of the kind would have to be interpreted as a welcome sign of enlightenment. Of course it wasn't.

It hardly should need saying that term limits for leaders aren't synonymous with democracy. What's less obvious is that they aren't even necessary for it. What matters is the people's practical ability to replace leaders, not legislative limits to political longevity.

In democracies, views on term limits fall between two extremes: The European parliamentary system that empowers the leader of the winning party and lets politicians get re-elected as many times as they can secure voters' support, and Mexico's single-term restriction for both legislators and the powerful president. The U.S. system lies in the middle of that range.

There are reasonable arguments both for term limits and for their absence. If you allow a political leader to remain in power indefinitely, even with periodic elections, there are increased opportunities for corruption and the rise of the politician's special interests. Even if neither is a danger, progress may slow and the political system may grow too rigid and inert: Many Germans, for example, accuse Chancellor Angela Merkel of putting democracy to sleep by staying in power too long (her reign has been extended to 16 years by successful coalition negotiations this year). In the U.S., incumbency affords so many advantages that term limits were advocated to give challengers a fighting chance.

On the other hand, if tough term limits are imposed, politicians are less accountable. In the worst-case scenario, they might use their limited time in office to maximize personal gain without fear that voters will throw them out. Or they are simply less responsive to voters' demands and less inclined to keep their election promises. This problem has been described in a number of countries, especially those with weak parties unable to mitigate this behavior; Brazil is one example.

No matter which side of the debate a democracy takes, its people can and do replace their leaders through a peaceful election process. Politicians of all stripes can form parties and run freely in elections and citizens can freely and openly support the politicians' causes. Safeguards against electoral fraud include independent courts and a free media. Neither China not Russia works that way, of course. In both countries, the courts are essentially tools of the political leadership, media are censored (or marginalized if censoring is inefficient), and the opposition is harassed and suppressed.

China now has decided to bring the constitutional description of the largely representative presidency in line with the national leader's other jobs -- as leader of the Communist Party and as head of the party commission in charge of the military. Neither of these was ever term-limited. The Chinese opposition isn't happy, but it's not as if it could ever influence the choice of leader. The two-term limit on the presidency didn't prevent the party leadership from running the country without asking the people.

Russia, by contrast, still only allows its president to serve two consecutive terms (then he can run again after a six-year hiatus). "I never broke the constitution and I never changed the constitution," Putin proudly told interviewer Megyn Kelly earlier this month when asked if he wasn't planning to, well, take it easy a little and give up some of his power. "Of course, if voters give me the opportunity to work another term, I will work and give it all I can."

Putin is technically right: He didn't try to run for a third term in 2008, ceding his post to Dmitri Medvedev, and it was under Medvedev, not under Putin, that the presidential term was extended from four years to six. He's probably truthful, too, when he promises not to try to run again in 2024; there will always be someone like Medvedev to keep the chair warm and the Putin system alive.

Does Putin's refusal to do what Xi has done make Russia any more democratic than China or, say, than Kazakhstan, where President Nursultan Nazarbayev amended the constitution so he could run for re-election as many times as he wanted? The answer is no: All these countries are authoritarian regimes where any pretense of democracy is a Potemkin village.

In Russia, keeping up that pretense helps the Putin regime in its propaganda wars, which are aimed at undermining Westerners' trust in their political elites. Even in the U.S. and Europe, I regularly meet people who argue that Putin rules Russia because he's wildly popular -- to which I can only reply that there's no way to test that theory in a free and fair election. In the obviously unfree and unfair one coming up on March 18, the Kremlin is working hard to increase the turnout to give Putin a semblance of democratic legitimacy -- but that legitimacy, even if it's achieved, will be as thin as the deniability of Russian military action in Ukraine.

China, Kazakhstan and lots of other authoritarian states don't need to worry about such niceties because their outward propaganda efforts are apolitical and entirely economy-centered. But that's the only real difference between Russia and these countries.

In all of them, the only way citizens can realistically change the government is through mass protest. The personalities atop the government don't matter as much as many think: Putin, Xi, the Iranian religious leaders, the current Saudi king and his designated heir are merely personifications of oppressive systems that are essentially self-sustaining until there are enough protesters for a new start. 

This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.

Leonid Bershidsky is a Bloomberg View columnist. He was the founding editor of the Russian business daily Vedomosti and founded the opinion website Slon.ru.

To contact the author of this story: Leonid Bershidsky at lbershidsky@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Therese Raphael at traphael4@bloomberg.net.

For more columns from Bloomberg View, visit http://www.bloomberg.com/view.

©2018 Bloomberg L.P.