China Potpourri

(These posts from Teaching Comparative blog)

Report to the NPC

Keep the organizations straight in your mind. That will help you make sense of the events.

China's top legislator delivers NPC Standing Committee work report

Chinese top legislator Wu Bangguo is delivering a work report of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress (NPC), or the parliament, at a plenary meeting of the NPC's ongoing annual session Thursday.

National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference

There are so many representative organizations in China that, perhaps, their number compensates for the limited representative-ness and limited authority any of them has. This is the group that has the first shot at reviewing the new 5-year plan.

Where in the government or Party hierarchy is "China's top political advisor?"

Top political advisor vows to push forward democratic oversight, contribute to China's economic development

China's top political advisor Jia Qinglin on Thursday vowed to "actively yet prudently" carry forward democratic oversight, and contribute to the transformation of the country's economic development pattern.

Jia made the remarks in a report delivered at the opening meeting of the Fourth Session of the 11th National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), the country's top political advisory body, which opened in the Great Hall of the People in Beijing Thursday…

China's new 5-year plan

Dan Harris and Steve Dickinson write for China Law Blog as an adjunct to their international law practice. Steve Dickinson has been speaking of late at various embassies and chambers of commerce in Beijing regarding China's Twelfth Five Year Plan. The following is the outline of his presentation.

It offers a shortcut for students to a summary of the plan. How does the plan appear different from the plans presented by politicians in other nation states?

China's 12th Five Year Plan: A Preliminary Look

This plan will be adopted during the March meetings of the National People’s Congress and the CPC…

I. China’s Ten Major Challenges

1. Resource constraints: energy and raw materials.
2. Mismatch in investment and imbalance in consumption.
3. Income disparity.
4. Weakness in capacity for domestic innovation.
5. Production structure is not rational: too much heavy industry, not enough service.
6. Agriculture foundation is thin and weak.
7. Urban/rural development is not coordinated.
8. Employment system is imbalanced.
9. Social contradictions are progressively more apparent.
10. Obstacles to scientific development continue to exist and are difficult to remove.

II. The Theoretical Solution

1. The Main Theme: Scientific Development
2. The Main Line: “China must rapidly engage in a complete transformation of its form of economic development.”

III. Ten Point Outline of the 12th Five Year Plan

1. Expand domestic consumption while maintaining stable economic development.
2. Modernize agriculture to create the new socialist rural village
3. Develop a modern, balanced industrial and trade structure
4. Advance the integration between regions and encourage stable urbanization
5. Promote energy saving and environmental protection
6. Create an innovation driven society by encouraging education and training of the workforce
7. Establish a comprehensive public social welfare system
8. Encourage cultural production in order to increase China’s “soft power”
9. Increase the pace of reform of the economy
10. Continue with liberalization and “opening-up” to the outside, but on a new track