China’s top legislature, the 14th NPC Standing Committee (NPCSC), will convene for its nineteenth session, its final meeting of the year, from December 22 to 27, the Council of Chairpersons decided on Monday, December 15. It will be the longest legislative session—lasting six days—since December 2019, with a suitably packed agenda. The NPCSC will review 14 legislative bills and hear almost two dozen reports, in addition to other business. As usual, we preview the session’s legislative agenda in detail below, while highlighting a few notable reports.
UPDATE (Dec. 5, 2025): On December 5, the State Council leadership approved a draft National Fire and Rescue Personnel Law [国家消防救援人员法], which the NPCSC is likely to review at this month’s session as well.
The amendment to the Food Safety Law [食品安全法] (adopted on Sept. 12, 2025) takes effect on December 1.
The 14th NPC Standing Committee is expected to convene for its nineteenth session in late December. The Council of Chairpersons is expected to meet in mid-December to decide on the agenda and dates of the session.
The session is expected to review the following bills:
The NPC Standing Committee is seeking public comment on the following bills through November 26:
Part on Pollution Prevention and Control and Part on Legal Liability and Supplementary Provisions of the draft Ecological and Environmental Code [生态环境法典];
China’s national legislature, the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress (NPCSC), is soliciting public comment on the following four bills through November 26, 2025.
English translations will be provided if available. All explanatory documents are in Chinese and compiled in a single PDF; the links above will take you to the corresponding pages in the PDF only if you use a desktop browser—this does not work on a phone or a tablet.
To submit comment online, please refer to this guide. Comments can also be mailed to the NPCSC Legislative Affairs Commission [全国人大常委会法制工作委员会] at the following address:
Supreme People’s Procuratorate. Photo by EditQ (Wikimedia Commons). CC BY-SA 4.0.
China’s top legislature, the 14th NPC Standing Committee (NPCSC), will convene for its eighteenth session from October 24 to 28, immediately after the Communist Party’s upcoming Fourth Plenum concludes on October 23, the Council of Chairpersons decided on Wednesday, October 15. According to the Council’s proposed agenda, the session will consider 9 legislative bills and hear 7 oversight reports, among other business. As usual, we preview the session’s legislative agenda in detail below.
The Communist Party’s 20th Central Committee will convene for its Fourth Plenum from October 20 to 23. The Plenum is expected to approve the Central Committee’s Recommendations for Formulating the 15th Five-Year Plan for National Economic and Social Development [关于制定国民经济和社会发展第十五个五年规划的建议].
The 14th NPCSC is expected to convene for its eighteenth session in late October. The Council of Chairpersons is expected to meet in mid-October to decide on the agenda and dates of the session.
Lastly, the session may review the draft amendment to the Cybersecurity Law, one or more parts of the draft Ecological and Environmental Code, as well as one or more additional bills scheduled for initial review in 2025.
Homepage of the Database on September 21, 2025 showing the popup note explaining the upgrades.
After a decade of development, the National People’s Congress (NPC), China’s national legislature, launched the National Database of Laws and Regulations (Database) [国家法律法规数据库] on February 24, 2021. Initially approved for development in 2011, the Database was deployed for testing in November 2018. By January 202, all data had been uploaded, and the following month it was opened for trial use by select institutions. While recognizing its scale, ambition, and laudable goal, we nonetheless thought the Database’s initial version—which we will call “Phase I”—missed the mark. Due to glaring gaps in coverage and a broken search function, it was “good for reading the documents you are able to locate, but not much more,” we wrote.
Four and a half years later, the NPC quietly rolled out major upgrades to the Database on August 20, 2025. While this new version—or “Phase II”—has the same coverage (with a caveat, as we will note below), there have been significant improvements on all other fronts: it has a more modern look, upgraded core functionalities, and useful new features. In short, we believe Phase II will prove to be much more valuable for the average citizen, if not for legal professionals as well.
In this guide and review, we introduce the Database’s current collection, redesigned homepage, browsing and search experience, and individual document pages. Its WeChat Mini App has received similar upgrades, but we decided not to review it this time.
China’s national legislature, the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress (NPCSC), is soliciting public comment on the following twelve bills through October 11, 2025.
English translations will be provided if available. All explanatory documents are in Chinese and compiled in a single PDF; the links above will take you to the corresponding pages in the PDF only if you use a desktop browser—this does not work on a phone or a tablet.
Mural of China’s ethnic minorities on display at the National Museum of Chinese Writing in Anyang, Henan Province. Photo by Gary Todd. CC 0 1.0.
China’s national legislature, the 14th NPC Standing Committee (NPCSC) is holding its seventeenth session from today to Friday, September 12. As we have previewed, it is considering a whopping 16 draft laws, in addition to other agenda items. Today’s official readout of the session’s opening meeting reveals that the NPCSC is reviewing two other bills as well: a draft Law on Promoting Ethnic Unity and Progress [民族团结进步促进法] and a draft revision to the Foreign Trade Law [对外贸易法]. We will take a quick look at these bills below, based on latest state-media reporting. The caveat is that such reports are essentially condensed versions of the bill’s official explanation, which in turn presents a selective summary of the draft itself. Those interested should consult the original texts (of the drafts and their accompanying explanations) when they are released on Friday. Below, we will also provide an update on the other bills under review.
Read our commentary for The Diplomat on the recent controversy in China over a statutory requirement to seal the records of public security violations—and what it says about public engagement by the NPC.
