Xi can be China's president for as long as he wishes!

According to a recent constitutional amendment, members of the ruling communist party have to retire at the age of 68; there is no term-limit for the post of President and Xi, who is 69, can continue.

Will Chinese President Xi Jinping have a third term in his office at the upcoming 20th national congress of the ruling Communist Party of China on October 16? Observers say the Chinese stage is all set to endorse Xi in his present status for as long a period as he wishes.

Xi's grip over the entire Chinese system today is absolute. In addition to being the country's President, he is the General Secretary of the CPC and Chairman of the Central Military Commission. The Party Congress is sure to endorse his candidature for a third term in the country's presidency.

According to a recent constitutional amendment, members of the ruling communist party's all-powerful Politburo have to retire once they attain the age of 68; there is no term-limit for the post of President and Xi, who is 69, can continue.

Xi is sure to emerge much more powerful in the years to come. Current Chinese Premier Li Keqiang, a protégé of former leader Hu Jintao, is 67. He will be retiring in March 2023. The next Premier is likely to be Xi's choice only.

One of his most important tools to maintain Xi's grip over the country is China's National Security Commission today. Since emerging as the Chinese Communist Party's supreme leader in 2012, Xi has wielded security powers in unparalleled ways. He authorized mass incarceration of Uyghurs and other largely Muslim ethnic groups in the western region of Xinjiang. In Hong Kong, he abolished the freedoms China had promised for 50 years when it regained the territory from Britain in 1997. At the National Security Commission's first meeting in 2014, Xi told officials that the threats demanded a "comprehensive view of national security."

The Commission is one of the most secretive bodies of a secretive state. Its size, staffing and powers remain unclear. Xi is the chairman of the National Security Commission. His senior aide Ding Xuexiang is the head of the Commission's administrative office. The chief deputy in this office is China's minister of state security Chen Wenqing.

The full membership gathers roughly once a year. The commission has established local security committees across provinces, cities and counties. These local committees focus on domestic threats like protests and dissent. They direct Chinese universities to observe and report on "ideological" problems among teachers and students.

Security officials have ordered cadres to closely monitor persistent protesters, people with histories of mental illness, former prisoners ad others deemed risks to safety and stability.

To Xi, national security is a 'people's war' enlisting not just military officers, but also elementary schoolteachers and neighbourhood workers. On National Security Education Day, children have lessons about dangers that include food poisoning and fires, spies and terrorists. The Ministry of State Security recently offered rewards up to $15,000 for citizens who report information on security crimes.

When residents in Shanghai, in a pandemic lockdown this spring, banged pots and pans in protest, local authorities used loudspeakers to warn that their display of public anger was being fanned by shadowy 'foreign forces'.

(Jagdish N. Singh is a senior journalist based in New Delhi. He is also Senior Distinguished Fellow at the Gatestone Institute, New York)

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