Xi Jinping didn’t speak at China’s Two Sessions meetings this year, but his presence was still felt.
His name appeared 16 times in the government work report delivered by the Premier Li Qiang, the number two leader, reportedly more than in any other year since Xi took office over a decade ago. Li was clear in noting that credit for China’s achievements in 2023 was owed to Xi and to “the sound guidance of Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era”, Xi’s ideological doctrine.
Journalists registered at this year’s Two Sessions – the first to be fully open to the media since the pandemic – outnumbered the delegates, but engagement with the press was limited and choreographed. The last day of the National People’s Congress (NPC) is normally a chance for the media to meet China’s premier, though this year Li’s press conference was abruptly cancelled without explanation, closing down one of the already limited forums for transparency. Press conferences on the sidelines of the NPC, including with Wang Yi, the top foreign affairs official, largely consisted of scripted answers.
“The cancellation of the press conference suggests Xi’s continuing consolidation of power,” said Ja-Ian Chong, a professor at the National University of Singapore.“Even though previous press conferences were stage managed, not putting Li Qiang on stage avoids any awkward responses given the PRC’s current economic challenges,” he added.
Xi also did not give a keynote speech at the end of the Two Sessions. He didn’t have to.
China’s annual parliamentary session concluded on Monday, with nearly 3,000 delegates to the NPC voting through the government’s plans for the year ahead with characteristically high approval rates.
The carefully stage managed affair brought China’s “Two Sessions” – concurrent meetings of the NPC and the country’s top political advisory body – to a close, with few surprises and a clear signal that the authority of the Chinese Communist party (CCP) is tighter than ever.
Since the end of China’s zero-Covid regime over one year ago, Xi has been steering the world’s second-largest economy along a path that is increasingly dictated by national security and party control at the expense of everything else.
Of the seven items on the agenda for this year’s meetings, only one concerned legislation. Some 99% of delegates voted to approve an amendment to the State Council organic law, which governs the functioning of China’s cabinet. The government organ will be required to “uphold the leadership of the Communist party of China” as well as following Xi Jinping Thought recognising the authority of the CCP’s central committee.
Scholars of modern China have traditionally understood it as being governed by parallel systems of party and state governance, said Alfred Wu, a professor of Chinese governance at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy in Singapore. “Now under Xi Jinping’s third term it looks very different. It’s very much like the party is the leader, the others are all subordinates,” Wu said.
Changhao Wei, a research fellow at the Paul Tsai China Center and editor of the NPC Observer website, said the amendment was an act of “memorialising a de facto practice”. “The party leadership of all institutions has strengthened since Xi Jinping took office,” Wei said.
That continues a trend that has been in motion since 2018, when the NPC voted to amend the constitution, adding a clause that stresses the leadership of the CCP, and removing a clause which said the president and the vice-president “shall serve no more than two consecutive terms”. The latter amendment paved the way for Xi to take a norm-busting third term as president, which he started last year.
Along with his position at the top of the CCP and the military, it makes him the most powerful leader in modern Chinese history since Mao Zedong. Although he was quiet at this year’s parliamentary gathering, no one doubts who is in charge.
Additional research by Chi Hui Lin
