Taipei, Taiwan – China’s “Two Sessions” kick off in Beijing on Monday with the meeting of the National People’s Congress (NPC) and the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC).
The event brings together China’s political elite, as well as leaders in business, tech, media, and the arts.
Known as lianghui in Chinese, the concurrent meetings are an annual fixture of China’s legislative agenda and run for approximately two weeks.
During the period, legislators will approve new laws, political appointments, and government work reports detailing the progress of various departments such as the Ministry of Finance and the National Development and Reform Commission.
What are the major developments to watch?
During last year’s Two Sessions, delegates officially approved Xi Jinping for an unprecedented third term as president.
This year, the event is likely to be dominated by China’s lagging economy, which is grappling with slowing growth, deflation, massive debt and falling exports.
One of the most important events to watch will be Premier Li Qiang’s delivery of the annual work report, which will review the government’s accomplishments and set goals for 2024.
Li is expected to set an economic growth target of about 5 percent for 2024 and discuss headline issues from China’s falling birth rate to the future of tech and artificial intelligence (AI) regulation.
A number of key appointments could also be made.
Over the past year, 11 members of the NPC’s Standing Committee – the legislature’s 175-member permanent body – have been removed, including Minister of Foreign Affairs Qin Gang and Minister of Defence Li Shangfu.
Those who were removed had ties to the military, including the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Rocket Force, which oversees China’s nuclear and conventional ballistic missiles.
What is the difference between the two sessions?
The NPC and the CPPCC are both Chinese state institutions that are technically separate from the Communist Party of China (CCP), but much of their work is dictated by it.
On paper, the NPC is officially China’s highest legislative body with nearly 3,000 members representing the country’s provinces, autonomous regions, big cities, the PLA and the People’s Armed Police. The NPC also has delegates representing self-governing Taiwan, which is claimed by the CCP even though Beijing has never exercised control over the island.
During the NPC, delegates review progress on policy goals and vote to approve new legislation and senior political appointments, although most delegates in reality have little political power.
The NPC Standing Committee is widely viewed as more powerful than the legislature in practice, despite being technically subordinate, as it meets regularly between legislative sessions.
“The NPC is not a parliament in the sense of a democratic parliament where the representatives are elected through fair elections. Its deputies are elected by a small portion of the Chinese population under the guidance of the Communist Party,” Adam Ni, co-editor of the China Neican newsletter, told Al Jazeera.
“That is to say, the deputies of the NPC are at least acceptable to the party.”
The CPPCC, which meets at the same time and brings together 2,000 plus delegates from across China and the diaspora, is a political advisory body that functions as more of a public relations exercise.
Delegates are not necessarily members of the CCP, although the meeting is part of its “United Front” efforts to align different actors on common causes and spread China’s influence.
CPPCC delegates include leaders in tech, the arts, media, and leaders from semi-autonomous Hong Kong and Macau.
“The CPPCC performs several functions, including facilitating elite networking and directing policy advice from outside the party to the party-state. It operates as a means of trade, where the Communist Party provides access to the system and recognition through granting membership, while the elites sitting on the body gain access to policymakers and receive recognition,” Ni said.
Is the NPC just a ‘rubber stamp’ parliament?
The NPC is often referred to as a “rubber stamp” parliament or legislature, as its main function is to formally approve premade decisions and it features little, if any, overt debate.
China watchers say that the NPC is still important to watch.
It can incorporate limited popular input on issues that are not considered too sensitive and, on rare occasions, has featured displays of dissent.
Most famously, one-third of delegates in 1992 voted against or abstained from approving the Three Gorges Dam, a controversial project to dam the Yangtze River.
“People refer to the NPC as a ‘rubber stamp’ because it has never voted down any bill, work report, budget, or nomination presented to it. But that unduly narrow focus on the NPC’s vote outcomes alone, in my view, ignores the important role played by the thousands of NPC delegates in representing citizen interests on a range of politically non-sensitive issues,” Changhao Wei, a fellow at Yale Law School’s Paul Tsai China Center, told Al Jazeera.
While you will not hear delegates debating on the floor, individual delegates and bodies such as the NPC Standing Committee can shape legislation as it is being drafted and provide input on issues like the national budget.
Delegates can also submit individual bills calling on the NPC to act on important issues of the day.
In 2022, delegates submitted multiple bills focusing on women’s rights and domestic violence in response to public outrage over the case of a trafficked woman with mental health issues who was found chained up by her husband.
While these bills were not debated publicly, they would not have gone unnoticed within the government either, Wei said.
Ni said although the CPP maintains an ironclad grip on power, the party is not a monolith, “but contains a multitude of interest groups and networks”.
“There are also non-party groups and personnel involved in the lawmaking process,” Ni said.
“We shouldn’t discount their agency, eg, advocates of women’s rights, environmentalists, because they can have an impact. But the influence and power of non-party individuals and groups are constrained by the political structure, where the party monopolises the instruments of state power.”
OTTAWA – Canada’s unemployment rate held steady at 6.5 per cent last month as hiring remained weak across the economy.
Statistics Canada’s labour force survey on Friday said employment rose by a modest 15,000 jobs in October.
Business, building and support services saw the largest gain in employment.
Meanwhile, finance, insurance, real estate, rental and leasing experienced the largest decline.
Many economists see weakness in the job market continuing in the short term, before the Bank of Canada’s interest rate cuts spark a rebound in economic growth next year.
Despite ongoing softness in the labour market, however, strong wage growth has raged on in Canada. Average hourly wages in October grew 4.9 per cent from a year ago, reaching $35.76.
Friday’s report also shed some light on the financial health of households.
According to the agency, 28.8 per cent of Canadians aged 15 or older were living in a household that had difficulty meeting financial needs – like food and housing – in the previous four weeks.
That was down from 33.1 per cent in October 2023 and 35.5 per cent in October 2022, but still above the 20.4 per cent figure recorded in October 2020.
People living in a rented home were more likely to report difficulty meeting financial needs, with nearly four in 10 reporting that was the case.
That compares with just under a quarter of those living in an owned home by a household member.
Immigrants were also more likely to report facing financial strain last month, with about four out of 10 immigrants who landed in the last year doing so.
That compares with about three in 10 more established immigrants and one in four of people born in Canada.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 8, 2024.
The Canadian Institute for Health Information says health-care spending in Canada is projected to reach a new high in 2024.
The annual report released Thursday says total health spending is expected to hit $372 billion, or $9,054 per Canadian.
CIHI’s national analysis predicts expenditures will rise by 5.7 per cent in 2024, compared to 4.5 per cent in 2023 and 1.7 per cent in 2022.
This year’s health spending is estimated to represent 12.4 per cent of Canada’s gross domestic product. Excluding two years of the pandemic, it would be the highest ratio in the country’s history.
While it’s not unusual for health expenditures to outpace economic growth, the report says this could be the case for the next several years due to Canada’s growing population and its aging demographic.
Canada’s per capita spending on health care in 2022 was among the highest in the world, but still less than countries such as the United States and Sweden.
The report notes that the Canadian dental and pharmacare plans could push health-care spending even further as more people who previously couldn’t afford these services start using them.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 7, 2024.
Canadian Press health coverage receives support through a partnership with the Canadian Medical Association. CP is solely responsible for this content.
As Canadians wake up to news that Donald Trump will return to the White House, the president-elect’s protectionist stance is casting a spotlight on what effect his second term will have on Canada-U.S. economic ties.
Some Canadian business leaders have expressed worry over Trump’s promise to introduce a universal 10 per cent tariff on all American imports.
A Canadian Chamber of Commerce report released last month suggested those tariffs would shrink the Canadian economy, resulting in around $30 billion per year in economic costs.
More than 77 per cent of Canadian exports go to the U.S.
Canada’s manufacturing sector faces the biggest risk should Trump push forward on imposing broad tariffs, said Canadian Manufacturers and Exporters president and CEO Dennis Darby. He said the sector is the “most trade-exposed” within Canada.
“It’s in the U.S.’s best interest, it’s in our best interest, but most importantly for consumers across North America, that we’re able to trade goods, materials, ingredients, as we have under the trade agreements,” Darby said in an interview.
“It’s a more complex or complicated outcome than it would have been with the Democrats, but we’ve had to deal with this before and we’re going to do our best to deal with it again.”
American economists have also warned Trump’s plan could cause inflation and possibly a recession, which could have ripple effects in Canada.
It’s consumers who will ultimately feel the burden of any inflationary effect caused by broad tariffs, said Darby.
“A tariff tends to raise costs, and it ultimately raises prices, so that’s something that we have to be prepared for,” he said.
“It could tilt production mandates. A tariff makes goods more expensive, but on the same token, it also will make inputs for the U.S. more expensive.”
A report last month by TD economist Marc Ercolao said research shows a full-scale implementation of Trump’s tariff plan could lead to a near-five per cent reduction in Canadian export volumes to the U.S. by early-2027, relative to current baseline forecasts.
Retaliation by Canada would also increase costs for domestic producers, and push import volumes lower in the process.
“Slowing import activity mitigates some of the negative net trade impact on total GDP enough to avoid a technical recession, but still produces a period of extended stagnation through 2025 and 2026,” Ercolao said.
Since the Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement came into effect in 2020, trade between Canada and the U.S. has surged by 46 per cent, according to the Toronto Region Board of Trade.
With that deal is up for review in 2026, Canadian Chamber of Commerce president and CEO Candace Laing said the Canadian government “must collaborate effectively with the Trump administration to preserve and strengthen our bilateral economic partnership.”
“With an impressive $3.6 billion in daily trade, Canada and the United States are each other’s closest international partners. The secure and efficient flow of goods and people across our border … remains essential for the economies of both countries,” she said in a statement.
“By resisting tariffs and trade barriers that will only raise prices and hurt consumers in both countries, Canada and the United States can strengthen resilient cross-border supply chains that enhance our shared economic security.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 6, 2024.
