The Washington Post-Chinas biggest political confab is about to begin What are the Two Sessions

2024-02-28T22:13:27.290Z

BEIJING — China is facing a tricky year ahead, with economic growth slowing, the population — and more importantly, the workforce — shrinking, markets in turmoil and tensions with the United States remaining high. The American presidential campaign will probably see an increase in anti-Beijing sentiment.

How will the ruling Communist Party deal with these challenges? We will get a good handle on policies and approaches when the “Two Sessions” begin in Beijing this week.

The meetings will probably last about nine days and will see about 5,000 delegates from around the country descend on the Great Hall of the People — the palatial building on one side of Tiananmen Square — many of them wearing the traditional dress of their people. The event is high on pomp and ceremony, and also on control: Traffic is rerouted and security is dramatically tightened.

The political proceedings will be highly choreographed, with most of the decisions having already been made by Communist Party leaders in advance, but the events give those leaders an opportunity to declare their intentions to the country. They’re also closely watched by outside observers looking for clues about the direction in which China is heading.

It’s particularly important this year because China’s economy, the world’s second-largest, is struggling. Li Qiang, the new premier and a loyal lieutenant of leader Xi Jinping, will give his first government “work report,” setting out the Communist Party’s growth target and economic strategy, as well as foreign policies.

What is the ‘Two Sessions’?

The Two Sessions, or “lianghui” in Chinese, is the annual gathering of China’s National People’s Congress (NPC), the rubber-stamp legislature, and the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), an advisory body without legislative power.

According to the Chinese constitution, the lawmaking NPC is the highest organ of state power. But real decision-making authority remains firmly in the grasp of the Chinese Communist Party’s Politburo and its seven-member standing committee.

The NPC session involves nearly 3,000 delegates, mostly officials and Communist Party members, who will ratify legislation, finalize personnel reshuffles and approve the government budget for the year. This year’s meeting kicks off Tuesday and is expected to last about a week.

The 2,000-odd representatives to the CPPCC meet at the same time in the same place to offer policy suggestions, although their input rarely translates into significant shifts in policy.

Bringing in business leaders, celebrities and other influential people from outside the party elite as representatives is meant to show engagement with the broader society. Previous delegates have included NBA star Yao Ming and actress Gong Li.

Why do these meetings matter?

While laws pass with overwhelming majorities, the Two Sessions are where Beijing signals its priorities for the year. They may be scripted, but the meetings are often a vehicle for important announcements.

It was at previous Two Sessions meetings that China formally ended the one-child policy, revealed plans to pass a “national security law” to curb dissent in Hong Kong, and removed term limits for the presidency, clearing the way for Xi to rule for life should he choose to.

Li, the premier, is heading the meeting for the first time since being appointed in last year’s session. He will open the proceedings Tuesday with a speech that sums up the past year and sets priorities for the year ahead.

It is here that important economic goals are revealed, including the closely watched gross domestic product target. Li is in effect giving the country’s sprawling bureaucracy its marching orders.

After a week of meetings — where lawmakers (nominally) debate the policies and (more often) praise the top leadership — the work report is passed, usually with only cosmetic changes. The delegates also vote on laws and bills drawn up in advance by the top leadership.

Everything passes, although sometimes there are delays or symbolic protest votes when delegates want to signal displeasure with controversial policies.

In 2013, almost a third of delegates voted against a new lineup for the Environmental Protection and Resources Conservation Committee out of protest over the government’s poor handling of air pollution. The appointment went ahead, though that opposition slowed a later revision of the environmental protection law.

Delegates also use a system of proposals to publicly raise pet issues, with policy solutions ranging from practical ideas, such as reforms to parental leave or raising minimum wages for gig workers, to nationalist grandstanding over issues like cutting English lessons from the school curriculum.

What is special about this year?

Xi’s historic third term, which officially began in March last year after he broke norms of succession and stacked the top leadership with his political acolytes, has had a rocky start.

China’s ending of harsh “zero covid” restrictions did not result in the anticipated economic rebound, shaking confidence and weakening its stock markets, which began the year with a 10 percent slump.

The Chinese economy expanded by 5.2 percent last year, and many analysts expect Li to set a growth target of around 5 percent for 2024, an ambitious goal given the property market weakness and insipid consumer demand.

While that is high compared with developed economies, it is already far lower than the more than 6 percent target of five years ago — and a far cry from the 10 percent mark recorded before Xi came to power in 2012.

This year’s legislative meeting is a chance for the Chinese leadership to show it has a plan to prevent a sudden economic slowdown. Li is expected to unveil stronger stimulus measures and more government spending.

The reality of the slowdown, driven primarily by a shrinking real estate sector that still accounts for a fifth of the economy, has led some Chinese economists to suggest scrapping an economic target altogether, which they fear helps fuel unsustainable levels of debt.

What about China’s view of the world?

Pronouncements from top leaders are also watched closely for subtle shifts in language that may signal more military aggression toward Taiwan, the island democracy of 23 million that Beijing claims as its territory.

In the latest example of these pressure tactics, the Chinese coast guard has in recent weeks started to patrol near Taiwan’s outlying island of Kinmen after a Chinese fishing boat capsized while being chased from Taiwanese-controlled waters.

The meeting could unveil a new Chinese foreign minister, too.

Qin Gang, who was chosen as the face of Chinese diplomacy in December 2022, disappeared after only six months on the job and was removed from his post in July. Qin and ousted defense minister Li Shangfu were both removed as a state councilors last week.

Oxford-educated diplomat Liu Jianchao, a fluent English speaker, is the front-runner, analysts said. Liu and the recently appointed defense minister, Dong Jun, are expected to replace their disgraced predecessors and become state councilors, a senior role in the official hierarchy.

The upcoming U.S. election will hang over the proceedings, according to analysts and state media. To preempt potential upheaval from a Donald Trump victory, Beijing is expected to double down on plans to ensure “self-reliance” in critical technologies like semiconductors.

In a sign of national security concerns, a revised law on state secrets, expected to take effect in May, will broaden the scope of restricted sensitive information to “work secrets.”

What’s Xi up to during all this?

Although Xi is not formally in charge of proceedings at the Two Sessions, China’s most powerful leader in decades tends to make his presence known throughout the proceedings with comments that often get top billing in state media.

Through drop-ins with provincial delegations, industry bodies and military representatives, he could present a new slogans or hint at shifting priorities — all of which gets folded into his personal ideology that is meant to guide Chinese policymaking.

Experts on Chinese politics track Xi’s movements closely to signs of who is in or out of favor. Attendance at a province’s session can be a stamp of approval for the local party chief and their approach.

It’s also a time for Xi to burnish his populist image with supposedly spontaneous interactions with people beyond his inner circle.

For outside observers, the trick is extracting hard policy signals from the propaganda and pageantry.

In a bid to rebuff international concern about repression in Xinjiang, Tibet and Inner Mongolia, Xi is often shown meeting and receiving gifts from delegates from the country’s periphery, who attend wearing colorful traditional dress.

In 2017, as a mass internment campaign targeting Uyghurs and other mostly Muslim groups in the far northwest was taking shape, Xi joined a delegation led by Chen Quanguo, often considered the architect of the crackdown.

In state media, though, the focus was on Xi being given a traditional Uyghur hat from the descendants of a man who once, according to Communist Party mythology, rode a donkey from Xinjiang to Beijing to visit Mao Zedong.