“Chinese Communist Party Congress set to anoint Xi as president for life”
If you read past the headline, the article goes on to say “We can be almost certain that Xi, as the Communist Party’s general secretary, will be appointed for another five-year term,” and “Technically speaking, since the term limit has been removed, he can stay in power for life, [although] that may require some formal ceremonies after five years.”
Apparently, a theoretical 5 year term that they aren’t even completely sure will happen means for life, and “technically speaking, he can” means he will do so.
In theory, I think in certain cases term limits can be a check for those in power.
Its not a blanket solution, but when I think of Gorbachev, Khruschev, Yeltsin, term limits might have helped stop their corruption.
I also think that term limits could help provide fresh faces to a socialist state that add new perspectives.
But this is me being charitable as possible, and I do see that term limits could cause or exacerbate corruption as well.
They wouldn’t though. Gorbachev was in power for not even 6 years, that’s barely more than one term. Yeltsin 8 years, so not even the commonly allowed two terms, during which he completely trampled all semblances and pretences of democracy anyway (three times at least), so what would the mere term matter for him? Khrushchev 11 years so that’s also not much longer than 2 terms. Not to mention he came to power in literal military-assisted coup. And he ultimately did not even tried to resist when he was ousted.