A new law amendment granting the Communist Party more control over China's Cabinet was the most significant thing to come out of the country's recent annual legislative session, says political scientist Chong Ja Ian. Chong spoke with TaiwanPlus about the highlights of this year's meeting.
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00:00 What was most significant to come out of this year's meeting of China's legislature?
00:06 What seems most significant is the organic law to do with the State Council.
00:12 I mean, essentially, it codifies what has already been in place for a while,
00:17 which is that the state functions are being increasingly subsumed under the party with Xi at its head.
00:26 That's been ongoing for a while. It's just that the codification sort of gives it a seal,
00:32 an official seal of approval from the party and basically sets the tone for the future work of the State Council.
00:40 It means their role are essentially relegated to being implementers.
00:46 This year, for the first time in 30 years, the premier did not give a press conference at the close of the meeting,
00:53 and China has cancelled the premier's press conference, at least for the next few years.
00:58 What are we to make of this?
01:00 Press conferences in the past have been pretty stage managed events anyway.
01:04 But I suppose one of the things is that the premier is ostensibly in charge of economic matters.
01:11 So even if it's implementation, right, it's the economic implementation stuff.
01:14 So by taking away the press conference, I suppose it's trying to remove any sort of awkwardness that might come
01:24 from a PRC response to what is going on with their economy right now.
01:29 The fact that it's slowing in the approaches that the current leadership is putting in place
01:34 doesn't seem to be spurring consumer confidence.
01:37 Neither is it sort of boosting the economy in other ways.
01:41 ways.
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