File pictures of former Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang (left) and Defence Minister Li Shangfu (right).
| Photo Credit: Agencies

China’s ruling Communist Party on July 18 accepted the resignation of sacked Foreign Minister Qin Gang from its Central Committee and endorsed the decision to expel former Defence Minister Li Shangfu and two other top Generals from the Party.

The decision came during the top-level meeting of the Party’s Central Committee, which concluded here on July 18.

According to the communique issued at the end of the four-day session called the third plenum of the Chinese Communist Party (CPC) Central Committee convened to discuss measures to improve the economy has accepted “Comrade Qin Gang’s resignation”.

Mr. Qin, 58, disappeared suddenly in 2023 from public view after serving as China’s shortest-serving Foreign Minister before being stripped of his remaining titles in the government.

The reason for his removal is still not known.

His whereabouts are also not known. However, while accepting his resignation, the Central Committee still referred to Mr. Qin as “Comrade”.

Mr. Qin was subsequently replaced by his predecessor Wang Yi who is also a member of the high-powered Politburo of the Party.

Earlier, Mr. Qin was stripped of his position as a state councillor and was allowed to resign as a member of the National People’s Congress (NPC), China’s Parliament.

The third plenum also confirmed the Politburo’s earlier decision to expel Gen. Li Shangfu and two other senior Generals of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Li Yuchao and Sun Jinming, from the Party.

Li Shangfu, who headed the country’s Rocket (Missile) Force before becoming Defence Minister, was being tried for alleged corruption.

Li Yuchao, who was also part of the Rocket Force, was sacked along with Li Shangfu.

The meeting also endorsed the decision of another top PLA, Gen. Sun Jinming, from the Party for corruption and indiscipline.

Official media reports say their removals highlighted the intensity of the ongoing anti-corruption campaign by President Xi Jinping to cleanse the military of corrupt elements. Mr. Xi, 71, is also the General Secretary of the CPC.

So far, over 50 military officials of various ranks have been removed or punished since Mr. Xi came to power in 2012.

The story so far: China held its annual parliamentary meetings known as ‘Two Sessions’ last week from March 4 to 11 to vote on legislations pre-approved by its ruling party, the Communist Party of China (CPC). The ‘Two Sessions’ event, which lasted for a week and comprised Beijing’s top political advisory body Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference and its unicameral legislature the National People’s Congress (NPC), saw Beijing set the CPC’s agenda for the next year – a push for technology innovation, 5% economic growth and concentrating more power into Xi Jinping’s hands.

While the passage of the laws is a given in the nation’s single-party system, the ‘Two Sessions’ event offers a rare view of China’s top leadership, particularly the Chinese Premier – the CPC’s second-in-command – via his press conference at the end of the session. However, this annual event has been scrapped in the latest edition. This year, the NPC also amended the State Council Organic Law, directing the State Council to ‘faithfully implement the CPC’s directives’.

Hit with an economic crisis and loss of investment, China has set an ambitious 5% growth target for next year but did not announce any major policy changes to reach this figure. It has also not announced any new appointments to the State Council headed by Chinese Premier Li Qiang, leaving the posts of Foreign Minister and Defence Minister vacant since last year.

 Here’s a look at the ‘Two Sessions’ event and key outcomes this year

What are the ‘Two Sessions’ ?

Lianghui or ‘Two Sessions’ is the collective term used for the annual event held by the Chinese Parliament, called the National People’s Congress (NPC), and the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC). As per the NPC Observer, the NPC, China’s topmost legislative body, with 2977 delegates elected for a five year term, meets only once every year in early March. This was the second session of the 14^th NPC and 14^th CPPCC – kicking off on March 5 and 4 respectively.

 14th National People’s Congress

In its session, the NPC deliberates on the government’s work report, reviews Central and local budgets, debates and passes laws pre-approved by the CCP, deliberates on annual work reports of the NPC Standing Committee (NPCSC) — the permanent standing committee of the NPC, Supreme People’s Court (SPC) – China’s apex court, and the Supreme People’s Procuratorate (SPP) – Beijing’s top public prosecutor to investigate and prosecute crimes.

Every year, in March, the NPC holds three plenary sessions at the Great Hall of the People on the west side of Beijing’s Tiananmen Square. In the first session, held on March 5 this year, the delegates reviewed reports and development plans for 2024 and were briefed on the government’s work report by Chinese Premier Li Qiang, and on the revision to the State Council Organic Law by NPCSPC Vice-Chairman Li Hongzhong.

In the second session, on March 8, delegates were briefed on the work reports of the NPCSC by its chairman Zhao Leji, the work of SPC by its President Zhang Jun and that of the SPP by the Procurator-General Ying Yong. In the last session, held on March 11, the delegates voted on resolutions pertaining to the work reports and the draft of the revised State Council Organic Law. Changes to the reports, legislations or any new delegate bills were proposed during deliberations in smaller groups on days between the sessions. The three work reports were then adopted via resolutions and the revised State Council Organic Law was passed.

14th Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference

This year’s CPPCC kicked off with an opening session on March 4 at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, with President Xi Jinping in attendance along with Premier Li Qiang and other top CPC leaders like Zhao Leji, Cai Qi, Ding Xuexiang, Li Xi and Han Zheng. In the opening session, also attended by several foreign envoys and foreign media, CPPCC National Committee’s chairman Wang Huning read the work report of the Standing Committee of the CPPCC National Committee. Later, the National committee’s members held group meetings to deliberate on the report on political proposals.

On March 5, members of the CPPCC National committee attended the NPC’s opening plenary session as non-voting members to listen to the Government Work report. Apart from CCP leaders, the CPPCC also comprises of businessmen, celebrities, and military officials and has a national-level committee and regional committees which advise the government/NPC on social and political issues. The body works in a purely advisory capacity and wields no legislative power, unlike the NPC.

Key moments and outcomes

Premier’s press conference scrapped

On March 4, NPC spokesperson Lou Qinjian announced that the annual press conference by Premier Li Qiang, customarily held at the end of the event, had been scrapped by the NPC. He said that Mr. Li wouldn’t hold the annual press conferences for the remainder of the term, which ends in 2027, barring “special circumstances,” without mentioning what those were. Three other press conferences on the Chinese economy, foreign relations, and Chinese livelihoods were held by various other ministers.

The cancellation of the Premier’s press conference, a tradition since 1993, has deprived international media of an opportunity to question the nation’s second-in-command. With access to Mr. Li cut-off, China’s policymakers remain completely insulated from the world.

5% economic growth, no change in policy

Delivering his maiden government work report at the opening day of the NPC, Premier Li Qiang set an economic growth target of 5% for 2024, vowing to push China’s ‘growth model’, make structural adjustments and enhance performance.

Also Read | Explained | On China’s economic slowdown

Hit with a property crisis due to the collapse of developer Evergrande, Chinese real estate developers have been struggling to remain solvent, leading to a slump in new home sales. Refusing to bail out developers, the government has urged companies to file for bankruptcy instead. Since the onset of COVID-19 leading to a total lockdown of the nation — multiple times due to the recurring COVID-19 waves — China has lost many of its investments. With low demand, consumer prices too have fallen in China, bringing the nation to the brink of deflation. All these issues have also wreaked havoc to the Chinese stock market, with many domestic and foreign investors losing confidence in what is the world’s largest market.

Despite myriad sectors facing issues, Mr. Li announced no new stimulus or policy change to achieve the targeted 5% growth rate. Setting a fiscal budget deficit target of 3%, China seeks to stave off deflation and control its rising debt. Admitting that achieving 5% growth with 2023’s base of 5.2% ‘will not be easy’, Mr. Li said that the need to boost employment and incomes must be taken into account. His statement was met with scepticism, with many economists terming the growth target ‘ambitious’ due to the lack of any major stimulus.

Mr. Li also announced a 7.2% rise in defence spending — the same as last year— indicating no additional push to enhance its defence capabilities, acquisition or manufacturing. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index (HSI) fell by 2.6% in response to the Premier’s growth target announcement, CNN has reported.

Technology push

China’s biggest focus currently is ‘shifting to future industries,’ as announced by the Premier. Highlighting new areas of focus in technology such as electric vehicles, artificial intelligence (AI), renewable energy, biomanufacturing, and commercial space fights, he announced a 10% increase in the annual budget for science and technology, bringing it to 370.8 billion yuan ($51.5 billion). Emphasizing ‘self-reliance and strength in science and technology,’ Mr. Li critiqued the ‘external environment’ impacting China’s development – alluding to the US tightening its hold over the export of cutting-edge technologies to China.

The technology push was also highlighted in the 2024 development plan, which called for a comprehensive approach to modernise China’s industrial system through innovation. It suggested the pooling of resources to achieve scientific breakthroughs, nurturing of emerging industrial clusters and more support for basic research— allocating 98 billion yuan ($13.62 billion) for the same, according to South China Morning Post. Total expenditure on research and development in 2023 had increased by 8.1% and accounted for 2.64% of the GDP.

In October 2023, the US Commerce department announced new export controls to limit China’s ability to acquire advanced computer chips to manufacture high-level semiconductors used in hypersonic missiles and artificial intelligence. It also announced restrictions on chip exports to companies in Macao, a Chinese territory, and other countries where the sale of US arms is embargoed. In a press conference on the sidelines of the NPC, Foreign Minister Wang Yi accused Washington of using ‘tactics to suppress China,’ terming the controls on chip sales ‘unfathomable absurdity’.

 Foreign relations

In a press meet on the sidelines of the NPC, Foreign Minister Wang Yi fielded questions on China’s relations with the U.S., Taiwan, Russia, and Israel. Mr. Wang said U.S.-China relations had improved since Joe Biden and Xi Jinping met in San Francisco last year. Accusing the U.S. of suppressing China via ‘unilateral sanctions,’ he said that the U.S. had an ‘erroneous perception about China. However, he. added that Mr. Biden had assured that the U.S. would not seek a new Cold War, seek to change the Chinese system or back Taiwan’s independence.

With two wars being fought at the western end of Asia, China termed its relations with Russia a ‘strategic choice’, asserting that major countries should not seek conflicts. Noting that bilateral trade between the two nations had reached $240 billion in 2023, he highlighted that new opportunities lay ahead for the two nations. Weighing in on the Israeli bombing of Gaza, he called for an immediate ceasefire and said that China would back Palestine’s full membership in the United Nations.

CPC’s tightening hold in the Chinese government

On the final day, the NPC passed the amended State Council Organic Law, with 2883 delegates voting for, eight against and nine opposing. The law, which has been amended for the first time since 1982, adds articles which mandate that the State Council ‘resolutely uphold the Party Central Committee’s authority and its centralised and unified leadership.’ The law was reportedly amended to deepen reform of party and state institutions to fully implement the Constitution, which was last amended in 2018.

Handing over more power to the President, the new law mandates that the Council ‘follow Xi Jinping Thought’ – CPC’s name for the President’s ideology setting a unified agenda for the Chinese people on socialism, discipline, diplomacy, policy, and culture. In 2023, the Chinese government had re-organised its structure, appointing a new CPC official to oversee certain ministries and giving additional monitoring power to the CPC in the government’s day-to-day working. Subsequently, the State Council amended its working rules to affirm that executive decision-making power lay with the CPC.

Moreover, the NPC did not appoint a replacement for the vacant ministerial posts for Defence and Foreign Affairs in the State Council. On July 25, 2023, then foreign minister Qin Gang was abruptly replaced by his predecessor Wang Yi, after a month-long absence. Mr. Qin had last been seen on June 25, 2023 in public. Similarly, Defence Minister Li Shangfu was removed on October 24, 2023, from his ministerial post as well as from membership of the Central Military Commission – a body commanding the armed forces, and his position as one of the five state councillors in China. The NPCSC, which approved the move, did not name a successor to Mr. Li, who was last publicly seen in late August.

The image of Chinese President Xi Jinping is displayed on a big screen during the closing session of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, held in the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, in Beijing, on March 10, 2024.
| Photo Credit: AP

China’s national congress is wrapping up its annual session on March 11 with the usual show of near-unanimous support for plans designed to carry out ruling Communist Party leader Xi Jinping’s vision for the nation.

This year’s weeklong event, replete with meetings carefully scripted to allow no surprises, has highlighted how China’s politics have become ever more calibrated to elevate Xi Jinping.

Monday’s [March 11] agenda is lacking the usual closing news conference by the premier, who in the past was responsible for economic affairs as the party’s No. 2 leader — the one time each year when journalists could directly question a top leader.

The annual news conferences have been held most years since 1988, and the decision to scrap the event emphasises Li Qiang’s relatively weak status. Past premiers have played a much larger role in leading key economic policies such as modernising state enterprises, coping with economic crises and leading housing reforms that transformed China into a nation of homeowners.

A key item due to be put for a ritual vote on Monday are revisions of the “Organic Law of the State Council,” China’s version of a Cabinet, that direct it to follow Mr. Xi’s vision.

“The Communist Party always called the shots but the party leaders who ran 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.

“Xi 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,” Mr. Thomas said.

In foreign policy, China appears to be sticking with Wang Yi as Foreign Minister who stepped back into the post last summer after his successor Qin Gang was abruptly dismissed without explanation after a half year on the job.

Analysts thought that 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 Defence Minister after a few months on the job.

The Organic Law of the State Council is being revised for the first time since it was adopted in 1982. The revision calls for the State Council, above all, to “uphold the leadership of the Communist Party of China.” It also adds the governor of China’s Central bank as a Ministerial post.

Echoing words seen in just about every proposal, law or speech made in China these days, it spells out that China’s highest governing officials must adhere to the party’s guiding ideology, which refers back to Marxism-Leninism and Mao Zedong Thought and culminates in Mr. Xi’s philosophy on “Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era.” As Mr. Xi’s government champions innovation and self-reliance in technology as ways to build a modern, wealthy economy, it is leaning heavily on more overtly communist ideology that harkens back to past eras.

Mr. Xi has fortified the party’s role across the spectrum, from culture and education to corporate management and economic planning, a potentially risky strategy. The “benefits may be outweighed by the costs of stifling political discussion, disincentivising local innovation and more policy shifts,” Mr. Thomas said.

During this year’s congress, many provincial meetings were opened to the media for the first time since the COVID-19 pandemic, though they were carefully scripted with speeches and other prepared remarks and none of the spontaneity once glimpsed in real group discussions on the sidelines of the meetings in decades past.

“The contrast with polarised politics in the U.S. and robust debate in other democracies could not be more stark: China’s political rituals, void of any overt dissent, put unity of opinion above all.”

Marching orders endorsed by the congress include calls to ensure national security and social stability, at a time when job losses and underpayment of wages have sparked rising numbers of protests.

Along with following “the guidance of Xi Jinping Thought” and other party directives, developing “new quality productive forces” — a term coined by Mr. Xi last September — emerged as a new catchphrase at this year’s congress.

The term suggests prioritising building self-reliance in science and technology as China confronts trade sanctions and curbs on access to advanced know-how in computer chips and other areas the U.S. and other countries deem to be national security risks.

Then China’s Premier Li Keqiang speaks during the ASEAN-China Summit in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, Friday, Nov. 11, 2022. File photo
| Photo Credit: AP

China’s former Premier Li Keqiang died of a heart attack on Friday, October 27, 2023 aged 68, just 10 months after retiring from a decade of office during which his star had dimmed.

Once viewed as a top Communist Party leadership contender, Li was sidelined in recent years by President Xi Jinping, who tightened his grip on power and steered the world’s second-largest economy in a more statist direction.

The elite Peking University-educated economist was seen as a supporter of a more liberal market economy but had to bend to Xi’s preference for more state control.

“Comrade Li Keqiang, while resting in Shanghai in recent days, experienced a sudden heart attack on Oct. 26 and after all-out efforts to revive him failed, died in Shanghai at ten minutes past midnight on Oct. 27,” state broadcaster CCTV reported. An obituary will be published later, it said.

Li was premier and head of China’s cabinet under Xi for a decade until stepping down in March.

“No matter how the international winds and clouds change, China will unswervingly expand its opening up.” Li said at his last public appearance in a press conference in March. “The Yangtze River and the Yellow River will not flow backwards.”

He was born in Anhui province in eastern China, a poor farming area where his father was an official and where he was sent to toil in the fields during the Cultural Revolution.

He memorably said in 2020 that 600 million people in China earned less than the equivalent of $140 per month, sparking a wider debate on poverty and income inequality.