China’s National Legislature Releases 2024 Legislative Plan

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On Wednesday, May 8, China’s national legislature, the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress (NPCSC), released its legislative work plan for 2024 (Plan). The Plan was preliminarily approved by the Council of Chairpersons in December 2023 and finalized on April 16. It sets forth priorities for all aspects of the NPCSC’s legislative work in 2024, which include a list of legislative projects slated for review or research this year. Other aspects of the NPCSC’s legislative work include dealing with expiring reform authorizations; conducting constitutional review of draft laws; improving the quality of legislation and legislative procedure; and raising public awareness of the NPC’s legislative activities. As usual, we will focus on the list of legislative projects in this post, but will also note a few other notable tasks included in the Plan.

Legislative agenda overview. The Plan schedules 39 projects for review in 2024: 16 that were already pending before the Plan was approved and 23 that would be reviewed for the first time. It includes a plurality of diverse projects falling within the broad category of economic legislation—all aimed at “accelerating the development of new productive forces and creating a new pattern of development.” Other prominent themes of this year’s legislation include government institutional reforms, crime and public safety, sci-tech and education, ideology and culture, as well as national security and other foreign-related issues.

Completed projects. Because the Plan was initially approved in late 2023, it includes four bills that have since been enacted:

• revision to the Law on Guarding State Secrets [保守国家秘密法] (adopted on Feb. 27);
• revision to the State Council Organic Law [国务院组织法] (adopted on Mar. 11);
• Degrees Law [学位法] (adopted on Apr. 26); and
• Tariff Law [关税法] (adopted on Apr. 26).

In addition, the following six bills went through an initial review in April in accordance with the Plan:

• draft Energy Law [能源法];
• draft Atomic Energy Law [原子能法];
• draft amendment to the Accounting Law [会计法];
• draft amendment to the Statistics Law [统计法];
• draft revision to the Anti–Money Laundering Law [反洗钱法]; and
• draft revision to the National Defense Education Law [国防教育法].

Returning bills. The other 12 bills that had been submitted prior to the Plan’s adoption will return for further review according to the following schedule:

New bills. The NPCSC also plans to review the following 17 bills this year (without setting any specific timetable):

Potential unenumerated projects. Like its previous iterations, the Plan leaves open the possibility that the NPCSC would need to consider other legislative projects in 2024 to accommodate new legislative needs, including to “promote comprehensively deepening reform, develop national defense and the armed forces, safeguard national security, and improve the foreign-related legal system.”

Backup projects. The Plan concludes the NPCSC’s 2024 legislative agenda with a list of 23 “backup projects.” These are bills that most likely will be enacted eventually but are lower priority for now, so are unlikely to come before the NPCSC in 2024. Of course, legislative priorities may shift in the course of a year, and some backup projects may be later prioritized. (Bill pages are not always available for backup projects.)

In addition to these titled projects, the Plan also directs the research of “a comprehensive law on finance covering matters including financial regulatory systems, as well as legislative projects on issues such as fiscal and tax system, cyber governance, and the healthy development of artificial intelligence.”

Other key legislative tasks in 2024. As mentioned earlier, the Plan is not solely concerned with lawmaking in the narrow sense, but also makes arrangements for other related tasks under the umbrella of “legislative work.” Here, we highlight two such tasks:

• Three reform authorizations will expire later this year: the first authorizes the State Council to modify or suspend certain regulatory requirements in China’s free trade zones (to expire in July); the second allows the State Council to suspend two provisions of the Metrology Law [计量法] in several cities (to expire in October); and the third authorizes the State Council to delegate certain regulatory authorities to the Hainan provincial government (to expire in December). The State Council is expected to request that the relevant reforms be codified or renewed before the corresponding expiration dates, or to choose to let them expire, depending on the circumstances of each pilot program.
• The NPCSC will “study and launch efforts to carry out a comprehensive clean-up of laws” in 2024. In other words, it will thoroughly examine the entire statute book to identify laws and provisions that are grossly outdated as well as inconsistencies among the provisions enacted over time, and make a plan to resolve those issues. The NPCSC’s last comprehensive clean-up of laws in 2008–09 led to the immediate repeals of 8 laws and minor amendments to 59 others. The NPCSC will likely be asked to pass a similar batch of repeals and amendments once this round of clean-up is completed, likely sometime next year.