March 14, 2013 - Xi Jinping Elected President of the People’s Republic of China

On March 14, 2013, you'd witness a foregone conclusion play out at the Great Hall of the People — Xi Jinping's election as President of China was decided long before nearly 3,000 delegates cast their ballots. The vote tallied 2,952 in favor, one against, and three abstentions — a 99.86% approval rating. Xi had already secured the CCP General Secretary position in November 2012, making the presidency simply the final layer of authority he'd stack onto existing power.

Key Takeaways

On March 14, 2013, Xi Jinping was elected President of the People's Republic of China by the 12th National People's Congress.
Nearly 3,000 delegates voted, with 2,952 in favor, one against, and three abstentions, yielding 99.86% approval.
The election took place at the Great Hall of the People during the fourth plenary meeting of the Congress.
Xi had already secured the CCP General Secretary position in November 2012, making the presidency a layered consolidation of power.
Following the vote, Xi bowed, received applause, and shook hands with outgoing President Hu Jintao.

Why Xi Jinping Was Already the Frontrunner Before Votes Were Cast

When Xi Jinping stood for election as China's president in 2013, the outcome was never really in doubt. You're looking at a candidate who'd spent years methodically securing every institutional lever that mattered. By 2012, he'd already claimed the Communist Party's General Secretary position, the Central Military Commission Vice Chairmanship, and a Politburo Standing Committee seat — the real power centers in Chinese politics.

His revolutionary pedigree, inherited through his father's cadre status, opened elite networks that outsiders simply couldn't access. The succession rituals embedded within party structure reinforced his inevitability further: the 17th Party Congress had essentially designated him years earlier, with Li Keqiang positioned as a secondary candidate to create an orderly transition. When March 14th arrived, delegates weren't making a choice — they were ratifying one.

Xi's path to the presidency was further shaped by his tenure leading the Central Party School, where he cultivated ideological authority and deepened his influence over the next generation of party officials.

Before ascending to national leadership, Xi had already demonstrated administrative range across multiple provinces, serving as party secretary in Zhejiang with a focus on industrial restructuring and sustainable development, which bolstered his reputation as a capable and pragmatic governor.

The March 14 Vote: How China Elected Xi Jinping

On March 14, 2013, the formality played out exactly as scripted. Nearly 3,000 delegates gathered at the Great Hall of the People cast their ballots during the fourth plenary meeting of the 12th National People's Congress. Xi Jinping received 2,952 votes in favor, securing a 99.86% approval rate.

Yet unexpected dissent surfaced. One delegate voted against Xi, and three abstained. Ballot secrecy ensured their identities remained unknown, and official accounts largely glossed over the objection. Still, those four dissenting voices stood out against the near-unanimous result.

After the vote, Xi stood, bowed to loud applause, and shook hands with outgoing leader Hu Jintao. The election completed his trinity of state, party, and military roles, consolidating power few Chinese leaders had held so decisively. News of the election was reported by Xinhua and subsequently published by the Embassy of the People's Republic of China in the United States.

How Xi's Party, State, and Military Roles Concentrated Power

By the time Xi Jinping's votes were counted on March 14, he'd already secured the roles that truly mattered. He'd led the CCP as General Secretary since November 2012 and chaired the Central Military Commission before the presidency was ever formalized. You can see how this sequencing wasn't accidental — party centralization meant controlling ideology and appointments first, then layering state authority on top.

The military piece proved equally deliberate. Through military personalization, Xi transformed the CMC into a direct extension of his command, sidelining institutional checks and concentrating authority in his hands alone. The "absolute leadership" principle kept the PLA answerable to him, not to collective bodies. Together, these three roles — party, state, military — created an interlocking grip that no single office could have delivered alone. This consolidation would later culminate in the removal of seasoned CMC figures, leaving the commission composed of little more than Xi and one anti-corruption officer.

Investigations have extended well beyond individual cases, with 14 of 79 generals promoted under Xi having disappeared or been investigated over the span of just two years, reflecting the extraordinary scale of a disciplinary offensive that analysts have compared to the purges of the 1970s for its reach into the apex of military leadership. This pattern of consolidating authority through legal and institutional frameworks echoes historical precedents, such as Canada's Indian Act enactment, where a single sweeping statute concentrated sweeping governmental control over an entire population's identity, land, and governance in the hands of one authority.

How the World Reacted to Xi Jinping's Election?

Xi's interlocking grip on party, state, and military power didn't go unnoticed beyond China's borders — the world watched closely as the votes were tallied on March 14, 2013.

Global reactions ranged from skepticism to outright criticism, with media comparisons drawing sharp contrasts:

Xi's 99.86% approval trailed North Korea's Kim Jong Il (99.98%) but topped Syria's Bashar al-Assad (97.62%).
Western outlets like the Telegraph and Wall Street Journal framed the lone dissenting vote as a staged democratic gesture.
Pew Research confirmed low international confidence in Xi, recording only 28% in the U.S. and 6% in Japan by 2014.

You'd see that outside sub-Saharan Africa and emerging Asia-Pacific economies, global opinion leaned decidedly negative toward Xi's leadership. Observers also noted that the final tally of 2,952 votes for Xi, with only three abstentions and one against, mirrored the near-unanimous results that had defined previous NPC presidential elections, such as Hu Jintao's 2003 result. Canada, for its part, responded to growing concerns about Chinese foreign investment by enacting Bill C-34 amendments to the Investment Canada Act in 2024, strengthening national security reviews of inbound investments.

Despite spending billions on soft power initiatives — including English-language media outlets and the promotion of Chinese language worldwide — Beijing struggled to translate those investments into a uniformly positive international image of its new leader.

What Xi Jinping's Consolidated Power Meant for China After 2013

When Xi Jinping secured the presidency in 2013, he didn't just win a title — he dismantled the entire architecture of shared power that had defined Chinese governance for decades.

You can trace this shift through concrete actions: he stripped authority from provincial governments, pushed economic centralization through state-controlled enterprises, and tightened media suppression across digital and traditional platforms.

His anti-corruption campaign removed rivals like Zhou Yongkang and Ling Jihua, erasing competing patronage networks entirely.

He installed himself atop new national security, military, and internet oversight bodies.

By enshrining "Xi Jinping Thought" into the constitution and eliminating term limits, he locked in personal rule.

China didn't just get a new president — it got a dominant leader answerable to no institutional check. Unlike his predecessors, Xi faced no staggered transition, as Hu Jintao relinquished all party posts simultaneously when Xi assumed office in 2012.

The 2021 sixth plenary session of the 19th Central Committee adopted a historic resolution crediting the Central Committee with Xi at its core for resolving longstanding problems and prompting historic achievements, cementing his stature alongside Mao and Deng as only the third leader to have his name written into both party ideology and the constitution. This concentration of authority under a single dominant figure stands in stark contrast to countries like Canada, where cultural and political milestones — such as the birth of Celine Dion in 1968 — reflect a society shaped by decentralized regional identities rather than centralized ideological control.