In most countries, the cancellation of a press conference would hardly justify a murmur.
But the sudden announcement this week that China’s premier will no longer hold the usual media briefing at the annual meeting of the country’s parliament has fascinated political observers of the week-long session, which ends Monday.
The press conference at the end of the National People’s Congress was the only time each year that the head of the world’s second largest economy answered questions from global and national media. It also served as a rare public platform for China’s number two official.
In addition to a legal review further enshrining the ruling Communist Party’s control over the State Council, the government cabinet led by the prime minister, the cancellation of the briefing highlighted a growing opacity and centralization of power under Xi Jinping, China’s most powerful leader since the time of Mao Zedong.
“Zhongnanhai has always been a black box and now it is even more so,” said Chong Ja Ian, associate professor of political science at the National University of Singapore, referring to the former imperial garden, located near Beijing’s Forbidden City , where the party’s top leaders are based. “It makes it even more difficult to try to invest and make long-term decisions about China.”
At the opening session of the NPC on Tuesday, held in the main auditorium of the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, thousands of delegates slowly applauded in unison as Xi and his top cadres took the podium and a military brass band chanted the “March of the Volunteers”, the national anthem, at full volume.
The only sound thereafter was the synchronized flipping of pages as delegates attentively accompanied Premier Li Qiang’s reading of the 31-page “work report” detailing his government’s economic goals for the year.
In addition to endorsing the communist party’s preset agenda, the event also aims to demonstrate social and ethnic harmony. Delegates from China’s more remote provinces attending meetings of the “two sessions” of the NPC and the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference – a consultative body affiliated with the “united front” – often dress in traditional clothing and rarely venture off script .
“I am very excited,” said a Tajik delegate from the CPPCC, a player in the northwestern region of Xinjiang, where human rights groups estimate that at least 1 million Uyghurs and other members of mainly Muslim ethnic minorities have been detained for several years.
The entire event is carefully designed. Officials read prepared notes at press conferences, rarely giving extemporaneous answers. The prime minister’s press conference in past years was no exception, generally only involving pre-arranged questions.
That made its cancellation even more surprising, analysts said.
Alicia García-Herrero, chief Asia-Pacific economist at Natixis, said Li’s failure to appear before the media would further erode investor confidence in China’s economy, following restrictions on access to official sector data and private in recent years.
“This is truly staggering for the size of the economy; that we just can’t get a sense of where we are,” she said.
It’s not just foreigners who fear that China is becoming increasingly opaque. In a proposal submitted to the CPPCC this year, Jia Qingguo, a professor at the School of International Relations at Beijing’s elite Peking University, said restrictions on officials and academics meeting outsiders such as journalists and foreign envoys should be reformed.
“The world is paying close attention to the rise of China and wants to understand China’s ideas and thoughts. However, at this moment, China’s voice not only does not increase, but decreases,” she wrote. “This has exacerbated foreigners’ negative views of China.”
According to analysts, the cancellation of the press conference could also be linked to Xi’s gradual downgrading of the role of the prime minister. García-Herrero compared this year’s “two sessions” to that of 2016, when China was emerging from a capital market crisis.
At the time, Li Qiang’s predecessor, Li Keqiang – who died last year – had enough political influence not only to formulate policy but also to publicly explain a series of measures as Beijing orchestrated a soft landing after a period of cash outflows. capital and market and currency instability. .
“Li Keqiang was instrumental in China emerging from the deflationary period of 2015,” he said. “I don’t think Li Qiang can do it. It’s simply impossible. It will be Xi Jinping’s turn.”
The reduction of the prime minister’s autonomy is part of Xi’s tendency to slow down the efforts of his more reformist predecessors aimed at achieving at least nominal separation between government and party. According to analysts, another such example is the revision of the law on the State Council currently under consideration by the NPC.
“The State Council supports the leadership of the communist part of China, [and] joins . . . Xi Jinping Thought,” reads one of the reviews.
Yale Law School fellow Changhao Wei, founder of NPC Observer, a website that monitors China’s parliament, said such language incorporates a 2018 constitutional amendment that deems the Communist Party to lead China’s political system. The same amendment removed presidential term limits, effectively allowing Xi to rule for life.
“The new clause therefore has great symbolic value,” Wei said, even if its practical significance was “minimal” because it formalizes what was in effect the existing relationship between the party and the State Council.
Xi did not speak during the NPC’s opening session, but still loomed over the proceedings from the central seat of the vast podium.
“We owe our achievements in 2023 to General Secretary Xi Jinping, who is at the helm and charts the course,” Li said in his working report, using a phrase that recalled one of Mao’s nicknames, the “Great Helmsman.”
“In the past, they [the Communist party] it has always had two leaders: the head of the party and the head of state,” said Alfred Wu, a professor at the National University of Singapore. But now, he said, there was only Xi.
“No one is number two.”
