NPC 2026: A First Look at China’s Forthcoming Environmental Code

Editor’s Note: This post is a collaboration between NPC Observer and a group of Chinese environmental law scholars led by Feng Ge, currently a visiting scholar at the U.S.-Asia Law Institute of NYU School of Law. The other members are Jiaying Deng, Xinyu Jia, Jingxian Zhang, and Gaachi Liang. This post was written by Changhao Wei and draws on materials prepared by those scholars.

Zhangjiajie National Forest Park in Hunan Province. Photo by aphotostory (stock.abobe.com).

Later this week, China’s National People’s Congress (NPC) is expected to adopt an Ecological and Environmental Code (Code) [生态环境法典] to partially codify, with updates, China’s existing environmental laws and regulations. It will be China’s second formal legal code, after the 2020 Civil Code [民法典]. The Communist Party views the latter’s enactment as a success. In 2021, Xi Jinping praised it as a “model” for codification and called for codifying other areas of law where “conditions are ripe.”

In fall 2023, the Code was chosen as the next codification project, likely due to its strong political and legal foundations. Environmental protection has been a top priority for the Party under Xi Jinping, whose “Thought on Ecological Civilization” was coined in 2018 as a component of his overarching political thought. China’s environmental law is also fairly well developed. Today, the country boasts over 30 environmental statutes, more than 100 State Council–issued administrative regulations, and many more ministerial rules and policy documents.

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NPC 2026: China to Enshrine Xi-Era Ethnic Policy in New Law

1957 propaganda poster depicting representatives of different ethnic minorities participating in a National Day parade on Tiananmen Square. The caption reads, “Long Live the Great Unity of Chinese People of All Ethnic Groups.” Original poster by Yang Junsheng. Photo via chineseposters.net. 🅮 Public domain.

Next week, China’s National People’s Congress (NPC) is expected to adopt a Law on Promoting Ethnic Unity and Progress (Law) [民族团结进步促进法]—designed to codify General Secretary Xi Jinping’s new orthodoxy for governing China’s ethnic minorities. That doctrine, known as the “Important Thinking on Improving and Strengthening Ethnic Work,” reflects the “Second-Generation Ethnic Policies” promoted by several prominent scholars. In a nutshell, this new “assimilationist” approach aims “not just to strengthen citizens’ sense of belonging to a larger, unified Chinese nation under the Party but also to mute expression of other—in the Party’s view, competing—identities.”

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NPC 2026: Agenda and Daily Schedule

China’s National People’s Congress (NPC) has released its 2026 session’s agenda and daily schedule of meetings, as well as a preliminary schedule of press events during the session. This year’s session will open on the morning of March 5 and close on the afternoon of March 12, lasting eight full days. As the NPC spokesperson announced in 2024, Premier Li Qiang will not hold a press conference after this session (or during the remainder of this NPC term “absent special circumstances”).

All times below are in China Standard Time (UTC +8:00). For a primer on the NPC and its annual sessions, check out this FAQ.

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NPC Calendar: March 2026

The revised Arbitration Law [仲裁法] (adopted Sept. 12, 2025) and revised Foreign Trade Law [对外贸易法] (adopted Dec. 27, 2025) take effect on March 1.

The following bills are open for public comment through March 28:

China’s 14th National People’s Congress (NPC) will convene for its fourth session on Thursday, March 5. The session’s agenda is expected to include the following items:

  • Deliberate the Government Work Report;
  • Deliberate work reports by the NPC Standing Committee (NPCSC), the Supreme People’s Court, and the Supreme People’s Procuratorate;
  • Review a report on the implementation of the 2025 Plan for National Economic and Social Development and on the draft 2026 Plan for National Economic and Social Development; and review the draft 2026 Plan for National Economic and Social Development;
  • Review a report on the execution of the 2025 Central and Local Budgets and on the draft 2026 Central and Local Budgets; and review the draft 2026 Central and Local Budgets;
  • Review a draft Outline of the 15th Five-Year Plan for National Economic and Social Development;
  • Deliberate a draft Ecological and Environmental Code [生态环境法典];
  • Deliberate a draft Law on Promoting Ethnic Unity and Progress [民族团结进步促进法];
  • Deliberate a draft Law on National Development Plans [国家发展规划法]; and
  • Deliberate the NPCSC’s Report on Efforts to Clean Up Laws and Opinions on Handling Relevant Laws and Decisions [关于法律清理工作情况和有关法律和决定处理意见的报告].

On March 4, the NPC session will convene for a preparatory meeting to select members of the Presidium (an ad hoc body of around 180 members that will preside over the session) and to finalize the session’s agenda. The Presidium will then immediately meet to decide on the session’s daily schedule and designate a spokesperson. Shortly thereafter the session is expected to hold its first press conference.

The NPC’s 2026 session will likely close on March 11, based on a recent notice from the Beijing police on ensuring airspace safety during the event. All documents submitted for review are expected to be approved.

Chinese Legislature Seeks Public Comment on 3 Bills: Social Safety Net, Certified Public Accountants & Fire and Rescue Personnel

China’s national legislature, the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress (NPCSC), is soliciting public comment on the following three bills through March 28, 2026.

Draft NameChinese TextExplanatory Document
Social Assistance Law (2nd Draft)
社会救助法草案二次审议稿		PDF · 🆚PDF
Certified Public Accountants Law (Draft Amendment)
注册会计师法修正草案		PDF 🆚PDF
National Fire and Rescue Personnel Law (Draft)
国家消防救援人员法草案		PDFPDF

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.

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Chinese Legislature Declares Initial Batch of 104 Enactments Lapsed—Another Batch Expected at NPC 2026

Shredded paper
Photo by SNEHIT PHOTO (stock.adobe.com)

Last December, China’s national legislature, the NPC Standing Committee (NPCSC), heard its Legislative Affairs Commission’s report on efforts to “clean up” [清理] China’s national laws—that is, a systematic review of existing legislation to identify outdated or inconsistent provisions. This was the NPCSC’s third comprehensive cleanup of laws since 1978.1 The first took place at the outset of the Reform Era, leading to a declaration that 148 instruments enacted or approved by the NPCSC had de facto expired. The second round occurred in 2008–09, ahead of the official declaration in 2010 that China had established “a socialist system of laws with Chinese characteristics.” It resulted in not only the repeal of eight laws, but also minor amendments to 141 provisions in 59 laws.

On December 27, 2025, the NPCSC adopted a decision approving the Commission’s report. In this “Cleanup Decision,” it also declared that 104 instruments it enacted between 1955 and 2021 had lapsed and were no longer in force, while confirming the continued validity of past actions taken under those instruments.

Neither the Commission’s report nor any legislative record associated with the Cleanup Decision has been published in the latest issue of the NPCSC Gazette, so we do not yet know the Commission’s full findings and reasoning. That said, according to the Cleanup Decision, the Commission also identified another 35 obsolete instruments enacted by the full NPC, which will address them at its 2026 session.

Below, we first provide an overview of those 104 instruments, then focus on several repeals with substantive effects, and finally discuss what may happen at NPC 2026 and beyond.

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NPC 2026: China to Enact Law on the Formulation and Implementation of Five-Year Plans

1956 propaganda poster featuring a Chinese typist and the caption “All labor contributes indispensably to the fulfillment of the [First] Five-Year Plan and is glorious work!” Original poster by Zhou Daowu. Photo via The Mao Era in Objects. 🅮 Public domain.

Next month, China’s top legislature, the National People’s Congress (NPC), will review and approve the 15th Five-Year Plan (FYP), a roadmap for the nation’s socioeconomic development through 2030. Alongside it, the NPC will also discuss and adopt a Law on National Development Plans (Law) [国家发展规划法]—the first statute to formalize the procedures for drafting, approving, and implementing FYPs.

Developed over seven decades, the planning process now operates under a mix of written authorities and long-standing customs. In 2018, the Communist Party and the State Council issued a joint opinion imposing a range of procedural and substantive requirements for drafting and implementing FYPs. In 2021, the NPC Standing Committee (NPCSC) overhauled its Decision on Strengthening the Oversight of Economic Work (Oversight Decision) [关于加强经济工作监督的决定]—which governs, among other things, legislative oversight of the planning process. Meanwhile, other features of the process, such as the Party’s quinquennial recommendations for formulating the next FYP, continue as a matter of practice.

The Law will codify that existing regime and regulate the entire lifecycle of an FYP: from drafting (Ch. II) to legislative review and approval (Ch. III), to implementation (Ch. IV) and related oversight activities (Ch. V). Most notably, the draft Law spells out the Party’s role throughout the planning process. While, unsurprisingly, it contains the now-standard language that national development planning must uphold the Party’s leadership (art. 3), the Law would be the first Chinese statute to assign detailed roles to Party documents and institutions.

UPDATE (Mar. 3, 2026): In a new essay for the Brookings Institution’s John L. Thornton China Center, we further elaborated and commented on the Law’s Party provisions.

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NPCSC Session Watch: Social Assistance, Fire and Rescue Personnel, CPAs & NPC Preparations

A Beijing China Fire and Rescue vehicle with a special license plate. Photo by tommao wang (Unsplash).

China’s national legislature, the 14th NPC Standing Committee (NPCSC), will meet for its twenty-first session, its second meeting this month, from February 25 to 26, the Council of Chairpersons decided on Tuesday, February 10.

A key task of this two-day meeting is to prepare for the NPC’s 2026 plenary session, scheduled to open to March 5. Among other documents, the NPCSC will discuss its annual work report and propose an itemized agenda for the NPC session.

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NPC Standing Committee to Convene Emergency Session Ostensibly to Confirm NPC Membership Changes

UPDATE (Feb. 4, 2025): After the brief emergency session, the NPCSC announced the removals of three NPC delegates who had all worked in the defense industry: Zhou Xinmin [周新民], former chairman of the Aviation Industry Corporation of China; Luo Qi [罗琦], former chief engineer of the China National Nuclear Corporation; and Liu Cangli [刘仓理], former director of the China Academy of Engineering Physics. Luo and Liu also lost their seats on the NPCSC as a result. No other business was conducted at the emergency session. The Credentials Committee’s report has not been released, so it is not yet clear when and why they were dismissed by their electoral units. For more information about those men and the ongoing anti-corruption campaign against the military and defense sector, see this report by the South China Morning Post. It is still unclear why the emergency session was necessary. The likeliest explanation is that they are facing imminent detention or criminal charges, so must be stripped of their privileges posthaste.

Image by Memed ÖZASLAN (stock.abobe.com)

On Monday, February 2, the leaders of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress (NPCSC), China’s national legislature, decided to convene the NPCSC for a one-day emergency session on Wednesday, February 4—weeks before its expected regular session later this month. This will be the second emergency session of the 14th NPCSC, following its July 2023 meeting to replace Qin Gang as China’s foreign minister.

According to the official readout of the legislative leaders’ meeting, the sole (disclosed) agenda item is a report by the NPCSC Delegate Credentials Committee “on the qualifications of certain delegates”—that is, on who has recently been elected to or removed from the National People’s Congress (NPC). The NPCSC is expected to approve the report and issue a corresponding public notice announcing the changes.

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NPC Calendar: February 2026

UPDATE (Feb. 2, 2026): The NPCSC announced on February 2 that it will hold its 20th session on an emergency basis on February 4.

The NPC Standing Committee (NPCSC) is seeking public comment on a draft revision to the Trademark Law [商标法] through February 9.

The 14th NPCSC will convene for its 21st session in late February. The Council of Chairpersons is expected to meet before the Lunar New Year holiday (which starts on February 15) to decide on the agenda and the dates of the session.

The NPCSC will primarily make preparations for the 2026 NPC session at its upcoming meeting, but may still review one or two of these bills: