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We are talking about the second session of the 14th National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) and the second session of the 14th National People’s Congress (NPC). The CPPCC is a deliberative body of social forces within China’s patriotic united front. It is attended by more than 2,000 representatives from parties, government agencies, the armed forces, labor unions, religious denominations, academia, and business circles, as well as representatives of China’s special administrative regions of Hong Kong and Macao, China’s 56 nationalities, and overseas Chinese returnees. The proposals of the deliberative body are submitted to the deputies of the National People’s Congress, the country’s main legislative body.
At the opening of the session, Wang Huning, chairman of the CPPCC, presented a report on the work of the standing committee of the CPPCC to the delegates. A report was also presented on how the proposals of this body were considered after the first session of the CPPCC of the 14th convocation, held a year ago. Acute social problems faced by China, such as aging population, youth employment, and declining birth rate, were also discussed.
The two sessions are considered the most important political events of the year, because they form the key directions of socio-economic development and provide guidance on all issues of political and socio-economic life of the country. Moreover, these sessions are being held in preparation for the 75th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China, in the context of a complex international situation and challenges to China’s modernization.
The highlight of the Two Sessions is the report of the head of the Chinese government to the deputies of the National People’s Congress. This report, delivered this year by Premier Li Qiang of the State Council, outlined the main directions for further development.
First of all, the GDP growth target, which is set at 5 percent. As we remember, the PRC’s GDP grew by 5.2 percent at the end of last year. This level of GDP growth continues the strategic line of the PRC leadership to abandon excessive rates of development at any cost and move to qualitative development through high technology, green energy and more socially oriented economic policy. This course of «high-quality» development, outlined by President Xi Jinping, also implies special attention to environmental protection. Xi Jinping spoke at length about the strategic shift of the focus of development to high and new technologies during the Two Sessions meeting of the delegation of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army and the Chinese People’s Armed Police. Traditionally, Chinese leaders use such meetings to clarify essential policies. There, as reported by Xinhua News Agency, the Chinese president stressed the need to «make reform in ‘nascent’ industries a priority for further comprehensively deepening reform policies, calling for an innovation ecosystem characterized by self-reliance, openness, integration and dynamism».
Among the key numerical targets outlined by Premier Li Keqiang is also the inflation rate limit of 3 percent. As is known, last year China experienced a downward trend in prices, especially for consumer goods.
The increase in the military budget by 7.2% to 1.5 trillion yuan (about $224 billion) caused a storm of emotions in the West and a lot of comments in Russia. Chinese Defense Ministry spokesman Wu Qian even had to explain that the current international situation is far from stable, and that «domestic security uncertainty» is growing. This apparently refers to Taiwan, which is legally part of the PRC but is governed partly from the US. As such, there is a risk of conflict. However, exactly the same increase — 7.2% — was in 2023, about the same in 2022. China systematically and consistently strengthens its defense, and this requires funds. At the same time, China’s military budget is far from the similar allocations of the United States — $866 billion, accounting for 40 percent of all military expenditures in the world.
As it follows from the report of Premier Li Qiang of the State Council, China is going to concentrate efforts and funds in completely different areas: to implement the action plan «Artificial Intelligence Plus», to intensify the development of revolutionary and advanced technologies, to deploy activities within the framework of the program «The Year of Stimulating Consumption». The central state budget allocates 700 billion yuan for these and other purposes. Another 3.9 trillion yuan will be used to issue targeted bonds for regional governments. Overall, R&D spending will rise by 10%.
If you pay close attention to Li Qiang’s speech, you can understand that China will continue its “open door” policy, and will also improve the investment climate in the country, in particular, even «implement national treatment for foreign-invested enterprises». China’s Minister of Industry and Informatization Jin Zhuanglong said that this year China intends to remove all restrictions on foreign investment in manufacturing and will also open up the high value-added telecommunications services sector to foreigners in a pilot mode.
And as China’s Minister of Transportation Li Xiaopeng said on the margins of the Two Sessions, China, as in previous years, will pay much attention to the rapid development of «green» and «smart» transportation. The country is accelerating the construction of smart roads, smart railroads and smart ports. New-energy and clean-energy vehicles are increasingly being utilized, he said. The share of new-energy vehicles in China’s public transportation already reaches 77.6 percent.
At the same time, as Two Sessions shows, the Chinese leadership sees the difficulties in development (falling demand, investment in some areas, problems in the real estate market) and has a plan to respond to these challenges.
Despite all this, the Western mainstream is using Two Sessions to intensify the information war against China. Even a respectable newspaper like the New York Times is full of pessimism about China’s future. It writes disappointedly about the end of the «era of rapid growth», regretfully reports that the Premier of the State Council will not give the traditional press conference this year, and so on.
And on the eve of the start of the Two Sessions, the Western press was literally flooded with comments about China «dramatically increasing production above its domestic needs and trying to swamp the Western world with its exports». Only now it won’t be cheap consumer goods, but high-tech products. This howl even forced US President Biden to react, who demanded that imports of Chinese electric cars be restricted «due to security concerns». Allegedly, Chinese electric cars are spying on Americans. You see, Tesla, though it also collects information, is a «democratic» car unlike China’s — «totalitarian».
In criticizing China for its increasing exports (which have only just recovered to pre-pandemic levels), the Western mainstream has forgotten that it recently lamented that Chinese exports are falling — and that this is supposedly bad for the global economic climate.
While looking for China’s economic problems, the West, of course, does not emphasize its own. But many «advanced» countries, such as European ones, where economic growth is approaching zero, are far from the targets set by the Two Sessions.
At the same time, the West forgets that China, due to its political system (the leading role of the Communist Party, first of all), has an incomparably wider and more powerful arsenal of means to combat economic and political challenges than in a free and wild market.
As noted on the eve of the Two Sessions in a program article in the CCP Central Committee’s journal Qiushi, «the basic characteristics of China’s economic potential have not changed. They are high resilience, large room for maneuver and policy tools. In terms of growth rate, whether it is an average annual growth rate of more than 6 percent from 2013 to 2022, or an average annual growth rate of 4.5 percent in three years of fighting the epidemic, China is far ahead of the global average».