BEIJING, 11 Mar: China\u2019s national legislature wrapped up its annual session Monday with the usual show of near-unanimous support for plans designed to carry out ruling Communist Party leader Xi Jinping\u2019s vision for the nation.
\nThe weeklong event, replete with meetings carefully scripted to allow no surprises, has highlighted how China\u2019s politics have become ever more calibrated to elevate Xi.
\nMonday\u2019s agenda lacked the usual closing news conference by the premier, the party\u2019s No. 2 leader. The news conference has been held most years since 1988 and was the one time when journalists could directly question a top Chinese leader.
\nThe decision to scrap it emphasizes Premier Li Qiang\u2019s relatively weak status. His predecessors played a much larger role in leading key economic policies such as modernizing state companies, coping with economic crises and leading housing reforms that transformed China into a nation of homeowners.
\nThe nearly 3,000-member National People\u2019s Congress approved a revised State Council law that directs China\u2019s version of the cabinet to follow Xi\u2019s vision. The vote was 2,883 to eight, with nine abstentions. Other measures passed by similarly wide margins. The most nays were recorded for the annual report of the supreme court, which was approved by a 2,834 to 44 vote.
\nIn brief closing remarks, Zhao Leji, the legislature\u2019s top official, urged the people to unite more closely under the Communist Party\u2019s leadership \u201cwith comrade Xi Jinping at its core.\u201d
\nThe party leaders who run the State Council used to have a much freer hand in setting economic policy, Neil Thomas, a Chinese politics fellow at the Asia Society Policy Institute, said in an emailed comment.
\n\u201cXi has been astonishingly successful in consolidating his personal hold over the party, which has allowed him to become the key decisionmaker in all policy domains,\u201d he said.
\nAs the party champions innovation and self-reliance in technology to build a modern, wealthy economy, it is leaning heavily on more overtly communist ideology that harkens to past eras. Xi has fortified the party\u2019s role across the spectrum, from culture and education to corporate management and economic planning.
\n\u201cGreater centralization of power has arguably helped Xi to improve central government effectiveness,\u201d Thomas said, \u201cbut the benefits may be outweighed by the costs of stifling political discussion, disincentivizing local innovation and more sudden policy shifts.\u201d
\nAlong with following the guidance of Xi Jinping Thought and other party directives, developing \u201cnew quality productive forces\u201d \u2014 a term coined by Xi last September \u2014 emerged as a catchphrase at this year\u2019s congress.
\nThe term suggests a prioritizing of science and technology as China confronts trade sanctions and curbs on access to advanced know-how in computer chips and other areas that the U.S. and other countries deem to be national security risks.
\nOn the diplomatic front, China kept Wang Yi as foreign minister. He had stepped back into the post last summer after his successor, Qin Gang, was abruptly dismissed without explanation after a half-year on the job.
\nAnalysts thought the Communist Party might use the annual congress to appoint a new foreign minister and close the book on an unusual spate of political mishaps last year that also saw the firing of a new defense minister after a few months on the job.
\nThe Organic Law of the State Council was revised for the first time since its adoption in 1982. The revision calls for the State Council to \u201cuphold the leadership of the Communist Party of China.\u201d It also adds the governor of China\u2019s central bank to the body.
\nEchoing words seen in just about every proposal, law or speech made in China these days, it spells out that China\u2019s highest governing officials must adhere to the party\u2019s guiding ideology, which refers back to Marxism-Leninism and Mao Zedong Thought and culminates in Xi\u2019s philosophy on \u201cSocialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era.\u201d
\nAlfred Wu, an expert on Chinese governance at the National University of Singapore, said the revision institutionalizes previously made changes, making it harder to reverse them. He described the congress as a \u201cone-man show\u201d that shows Xi\u2019s determination to create a system in which the party leads on policy, diminishing the role of the State Council and the legislature.
\n\u201cHis determination is very clear,\u201d Wu said. \u201cHe is willing to change everything.\u201d
\nDuring this year\u2019s congress, many provincial meetings were opened to the media for the first time since the COVID-19 pandemic, though they were carefully scripted with prepared remarks and none of the spontaneity once glimpsed in decades past.
\nThe contrast with polarized politics in the U.S. and robust debate in other democracies could not be more stark: China\u2019s political rituals, void of any overt dissent, put unity above all.
\nMarching orders endor-sed by the congress include calls to ensure national security and social stability at a time when job losses and underpayment of wa-ges have sparked a growing number of protests. (AP)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
BEIJING, 11 Mar: China\u2019s national legislature wrapped up its annual session Monday with the usual show of near-unanimous support for plans designed to carry out ruling Communist Party leader Xi Jinping\u2019s vision for the nation. The weeklong event, replete with meetings carefully scripted to allow no surprises, has highlighted how China\u2019s politics have become ever […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-236815","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-world"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/236815","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=236815"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/236815\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=236815"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=236815"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=236815"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}