The 2018 Constitutional Amendment & the End of Term Limits

Chinese Political History II: Reform, Opening & the Rise of Modern China

Chapter 7 · The 2018 Constitutional Amendment & the End of Term Limits

Chapter 4 described a pattern of scheduled handovers, and Chapter 6 described how authority gathered around one leader. This chapter looks at the formal act that most clearly marks the break: the March 2018 amendment that removed the two-term limit on China's presidency. It sets out what the text said, how the vote went, what the state said it was for, and what happened after. It is the subject the capstone in Chapter 10 comes back to, so the facts here are kept narrow and marked where sources disagree.

What Was Changed

Article 79 of the constitution previously said that the president and vice president had the same term as the National People's Congress and "must not serve more than two consecutive terms." The 2018 amendment removed the two-term language. The change took effect for the president who would otherwise have had to leave office after his second term in 2023.

Only One Post Had a Written Limit State media's rationale, as one summary reports it, was to bring three top positions into line: party general secretary, state president and Central Military Commission chairman. The other two, it says, already lacked formal term restrictions. That matters for reading the change. The amendment did not remove a limit on the leader's real power base; it removed a limit on the third, mostly formal, post so that all three could be held together without a legal end date.

The Vote

Item	Detail
Body and date	First session of the 13th National People's Congress, 11 March 2018
Result	2,958 in favor, 2 against, 3 abstentions
Proposal made public	Xinhua announced the Central Committee's proposal on 25 February 2018, about a week before the congress's opening session; several reports say it had been kept secret until then. One summary instead gives 26 January 2018 as the proposal date; the two may refer to different steps, and I could not reconcile them.

Compare this with the 1992 Three Gorges vote in Chapter 2, where 664 of 2,633 delegates abstained and 177 voted against. Five delegates out of about 2,963 recorded in this tally did not vote in favor, which is about 0.2 percent. The difference in dissent between the two votes is large, and it illustrates the Chapter 2 point that the congress is a body for approving decisions made elsewhere. It does not by itself show how many delegates privately disagreed.

What Else the Amendment Did

Party leadership in the text

The amendment wrote the leadership of the Communist Party into the main text of the constitution, not only the preamble.

Xi Jinping Thought

The preamble was expanded to include "Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics" (Chapter 6).

Supervision and oaths

It established the National Supervisory Commission (Chapter 6) and codified constitutional oaths for state officials.

A Package, Not a Single Change The term-limit removal was one part of an amendment that also set out the party's leadership, the leader's doctrine and the anti-corruption body. Read together, they align the constitution with the arrangement Chapter 6 described. The amendment made the informal concentration formal.

What Followed

2022, third term as general secretary. At the 20th Party Congress (16–22 October 2022, 2,296 delegates), Xi secured a third term at the first plenary session immediately after. Official results are reported as unanimous, with no abstentions or votes against.
A leadership with no designated successor. The new seven-member Standing Committee (Chapter 2) contained no clear successor. Reuters is quoted as noting that four of the previous seven members stepped down.
A third presidential term. The constitutional change is what allowed Xi to be re-elected president in 2023.
Hu Jintao's exit. On 22 October 2022 the former president was escorted from his seat in the hall before voting. Xinhua attributed this to health, and foreign analysts disagreed about whether it carried a political message. The event is contested and should not be used as evidence of either.

Public Opinion Is Hard to Read A 2023 study reported by one summary found support for the change ranging from 37 to 60 percent depending on how the question was framed. The range shows that public opinion in a system with limited free expression is hard to measure, not that the true figure is anywhere in the middle.

How This Changes the Succession Story

Chapter 4's pattern (a successor identified in advance, a handover at a congress, a complete retirement in 2012) depended on norms. Chapter 4 noted that two informal norms, the age rule and any limit on party posts, could not be verified. This chapter has now shown the one written limit being removed.

It ended a formal end date for the president's office.
The party posts never had a written end date, so after 2018 none of the three top posts had one.
Whether a successor is prepared is an open question in the sources: the 2022 committee had none designated.

Where the Course Goes Next Chapter 8 covers Hong Kong and Chapter 9 Taiwan, both places where the constitution's text and the party's leadership interact directly. Chapter 10 returns to this amendment as its worked case, so keep the vote, the text of Article 79 and the state's stated rationale in mind.

Hands-On Exercises

Exercise 1

Explain why the state's rationale (aligning the three top posts) makes the amendment a change to one post and not to the leader's power in general, and say whether that makes the change smaller or larger than it looks.

→ Solution

Exercise 2

Compare the 2018 vote with the 1992 Three Gorges vote (Chapter 2) and write two careful sentences about what the difference does and does not tell you.

→ Solution

Exercise 3

A commentator writes "China abolished term limits for its leader in 2018." Identify what is imprecise and rewrite the sentence.

→ Solution

Quick Reference

Article 79: two-consecutive-term limit on the president and vice president, removed in 2018
Vote: 11 March 2018, 2,958 for, 2 against, 3 abstentions
State rationale: align the general secretary, president and CMC chair, two of which had no formal limit
Same amendment: party leadership in the main text; Xi Jinping Thought in the preamble; National Supervisory Commission; oaths
20th Congress: 16–22 October 2022; third term; no designated successor; Hu Jintao escorted out on 22 October
Third presidential term: 2023
Proposal: made public by Xinhua on 25 February 2018; a conflicting 26 January 2018 date (single source) is unreconciled