China's 'twin meetings' under the shadow of COVID-19

Each year two political conferences occur consecutively in China. These are given the shorthand ‘lianghui’ or the ‘two sessions’. Both are coming up later this month, under extraordinary domestic and international circumstances, and after a 10-week delay.

Jason Young from the New Zealand Contemporary China Research Centre looks at what can we expect from the meetings. 

The first of the two sessions is the annual national meeting of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC). The CPPCC emerged in the late 1940s and operated as China’s de facto legislature from 1949 to 1954 before the first Constitution of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) was enacted transferring legislative power to the National People’s Congress (NPC).

Today the CPPCC’s role in the Chinese system appears to be little more than to present to a largely domestic audience a vital show of unity across differing social and ethnic groups in China. We can expect this year’s CPPCC to be no different.

Considering the events of the last year, the focus will likely be demonstrating resolve in the face of the public health and economic challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as presenting a show of national unity in the face of mass protests in Hong Kong and the international response to the detentions of millions of Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang.

Speeches will praise the leadership for their decisive action and allude to flawed international responses showing a need for greater international outreach by bodies such as the CPPCC.

The Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference. Photo: Wikimedia Commons

But there is an opportunity this year for the conference to spend time scrutinising the work of the Chinese government as they have done in the past, such as with the proposal for the Three Gorges Dam in the mid-1980s, but this is unlikely.

While there is a strong need for an independent body to assess the government response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the reality is that the CPPCC is still far from morphing into an upper house, or fulfilling its potential to act as a representative body to check and balance the Chinese government.

The second of the two sessions should provide more substance for understanding where China thinks it's going in the next 12 months.

The National People's Congress is effectively China's national legislature and is elected on a five-year cycle, the last occurring in 2018. It also maintains a Standing Committee of 150 members who meet every couple of months to conduct the vast majority of China’s legislative programme, most recently meeting via videoconference.

At the upcoming annual congress, members will vote on major legislation, the annual government work report and central and local budgets.

China's Great Hall of the People in Tiananmen Square. Photo: Supplied

There are no major elections scheduled at this year's Congress, and considering the fallout from COVID-19, it would appear untimely to push further constitutional amendments like those of 2018 that controversially removed term limits for the President and Vice President.

The Congress has been described as a ‘rubber stamp’, because it very rarely votes down any bill it considers.

The party controls the introduction of legislation and there is no effective opposition to debate or to hold the government to account. Constitutionally it is the highest organ of state power, but one completely controlled by the party.  A recent 2018 constitutional amendment clearly states, ‘The defining feature of socialism with Chinese characteristics is the leadership of the Communist Party of China’.

This year we can expect the around 3000 members of the National People's Congress to enjoy a short week and one that may not even occur on site.

The focus is likely to be on demonstrating government competency in the face of multiple crises.  These discussions and the scripted media announcements and press briefings that will accompany them could provide an early signal of China’s post-COVID-19 direction.

They also broadcast to the world the "good news" out of China, which has all but dealt with the deadly virus that is causing so much death and misery in the democracies of the West.  

The annual Government Work Report and the National Economic and Social Development Plan will likely highlight the economic gravity of the COVID-19 challenge, including the 6.8 percent contraction in Chinese gross domestic product in the first quarter of 2020.

Officials will likely draw attention to government policy on public health, perhaps even highlighting some failures to be rectified in the coming year.

We should expect some announcement of efforts to kick-start the Chinese economic recovery and return to the key indicators of progress that define so much of the Chinese bureaucracy’s work programme.

Neither of the two sessions should be confused with the most important political conference in China.

Every five years the National Congress of the Communist Party of China meets at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing to determine the direction and the makeup of the party leadership.

Between the five-yearly Congress meetings, a number of smaller meetings announce party policies and priorities. Last year the plenary meeting of the Central Committee of the CPC was delayed until November, as Beijing wrestled with civil unrest in Hong Kong and the marked deterioration of relations with the United States over trade. 

With a national membership of 90 million, effective control of all branches of government,  and an increasingly interventionist role in all aspects of society, the Chinese Communist Party is the overwhelmingly dominant political organisation in China.                                             

This year’s two sessions are still important to watch for a number of reasons.

Even though the party controls the legislative process and government work programme, they execute their priorities through the institutions of government. China’s political and policy deliberations are notoriously closed door providing few opportunities to understand responses to the range of policy challenges facing China.

China is reeling from the twin public health and economic crisis created by the COVID-19 outbreak as well as ongoing tensions with the US, unrest in Hong Kong, strained relations with Taiwan, and the pressure that continues to build internationally over the need for a comprehensive investigation into exactly how COVID-19 emerged in Wuhan.

Continuing protests in Hong Kong are just one agenda item for the NPC this year. Photo: Supplied

The two sessions, especially the National People's Congress, will be a rare opportunity to understand China’s political priorities, but also to gauge the level of control the party still exerts across the country.  

At present, it appears China’s leadership have retreated from the idea of separating party and state and are instead reaffirming the party's dominance over the increasing powerful arms of state power.

That reality presents challenges not only for China’s domestic politics but also its relations with countries all over the world.

- Asia Media Centre