| Резюме: | They’re not leaders for life — not technically, at least. But in political reality, the powerful tenures of China’s Xi Jinping and, as of this week, Russia’s Vladimir Putin are looking as if they will extend much deeper into the 21st century — even as the two superpowers whose destinies they steer gather more clout with each passing year. What’s more, as they consolidate political control at home, sometimes with harsh measures, they’re working together more substantively than ever in a growing challenge to the West and the world’s other superpower, the United States, which elects its leader every four years. This week, Putin signed a law allowing him to potentially hold onto power until 2036. The 68-year-old Russian president, who has been in power for more than two decades — longer than any other Kremlin leader since Soviet dictator Josef Stalin — pushed through a constitutional vote last year allowing him to run again in 2024 when his current six-year term ends. He has overseen a systematic crackdown on dissent. In China, Xi, who came to power in 2012, has imposed even tighter controls on the already repressive political scene, emerging as one of his nation’s most powerful leaders in the seven decades of Communist Party rule that began with Mao Zedong’s often-brutal regime. Under Xi, the government has rounded up, imprisoned or silenced intellectuals, legal activists and other voices, cracked down on Hong Kong’s opposition and used security forces to suppress calls for minority rights in Xinjiang, Tibet and Inner Mongolia. Xi has sidelined rivals, locked up critics and tightened the party’s control over information. An ongoing crackdown against corruption has won popular support while also keeping potential competitors in line. His steady consolidation of power led to the removal of term limits on the Chinese presidency in 2018, demolishing a convention the party had established to prevent a repeat of the abuse produced by Mao’s one-person rule. Xi further telegraphed his intention to remain in power by breaking from tradition and not indicating a preferred successor. One who appeared eager to take on the role, Sun Zhengcai, was brought down in 2017 and sentenced to life in prison on corruption charges. And in Russia, Putin’s most outspoken critic, Alexei Navalny, was arrested in January upon his return from Germany, where he spent five months recovering from a nerve-agent poisoning that he blames on the Kremlin — an accusation Russian authorities have denied. In February, Navalny was sentenced to 2½ years in prison. In defying the West, Putin and Xi both have tapped nationalist feelings. Russia’s 2014 annexation of Ukraine’s Crimea propelled Putin’s approval ratings to nearly 90% before they slackened amid economic woes and unpopular pensions reform. But the impact of Putin’s and Xi’s enduring retention of power hardly ends at their respective nations’ borders. It ripples outward into the geopolitical balance of power in countless ways. As Moscow’s relations with the West sank to post-Cold War lows amid accusations of election meddling and hacking attacks, Putin has increasingly sought to strengthen ties with China. And while China so far has avoided a showdown with the West like Russia’s, it is coming under growing pressure from Washington and its allies over Beijing’s human rights record in Xinjiang, Hong Kong and the South China Sea. U.S. President Joe […]
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