Xi’s core leader status confers veto power to him: Critics

China’s ruling Communist Party on Friday defended its decision to elevate President Xi Jinping as “core leader”, saying it was aimed at achieving goals of building a moderately prosperous society and a modern socialist country, though critics averred it would grant him a veto power.

That “the CPC Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping as the core” was officially put forward at the meeting is “where the fundamental interests of the Party and state lie,” Liu Qibao, a member of the Political Bureau of the CPC Publicity Department, said in the first official comment after Xi’s elevation.

It is also a fundamental guarantee for the adherence to and strengthening of the CPC leadership, Liu was quoted as saying by state-run Xinhua news agency after the party issued a communique about the decisions of the four-day meeting of the Party Plenary, which concluded here on Thursday. The decision to elevate the status of 63-year-old to core leader, bringing him on par with party founder Mao Zedong, reformist leader Deng Xiaoping and his successor Jiang Zemin, was taken at the meeting.