UPDATE (June 27, 2025): On June 27, the NPCSC approved revisions to the Public Security Administration Punishments Law (effective Jan. 1, 2026) and to the Anti–Unfair Competition Law (effective Oct. 15, 2025). It also removed Miao Hua as a member of the PRC Central Military Commission and ratified the Convention on the Establishment of the International Organization for Mediation, among the other actions taken.
China’s top legislature, the 14th NPC Standing Committee (NPCSC), will convene for its sixteenth session from June 24 to 27, the Council of Chairpersons decided on Monday, June 16. According to the Council’s proposed agenda, the session will consider twelve legislative bills, hear three oversight reports, and ratify the Convention on the Establishment of the International Organization for Mediation—which China signed on May 30 as a founding member. As usual, we preview the session’s legislative agenda in detail below.
Returning Bills
Seven bills have been scheduled for further review.
The draft revision to the Public Security Administration Punishments Law [治安管理处罚法] returns for its third—and most likely final—review. We will of course say more after it passes.
The following bills will return for their second review:
- draft revision to the Anti–Unfair Competition Law [反不正当竞争法];
- draft Public Health Emergency Response Law [突发公共卫生事件应对法];
- draft revision to the Maritime Law [海商法];
- draft Law on Publicity and Education on the Rule of Law [法治宣传教育法];
- draft revision to the Fisheries Law [渔业法]; and
- draft revision to the Civil Aviation Law [民用航空法];
While the draft revision to the Anti–Unfair Competition Law may pass next week, we anticipate an additional round of deliberations for the others by the end of the year.
New Bills
Five new bills have been submitted for review.
The NPC Social Development Affairs Committee submitted a pair of bills to update the Villagers’ Committees Organic Law (VCOL) [村民委员会组织法] and the Urban Residents’ Committees Organic Law (URCOL) [城市居民委员会组织法]: the organic statutes of China’s “grassroots mass organizations for self-governance” [基层群众性自治组织]. In theory, villagers’ committees and urban residents’ committees do not constitute a separate level of government, but are rather non-governmental bodies responsible for “self-management, self-education, and self-service” [自我管理、自我教育、自我服务]. Both laws were originally adopted in the late 1980s. The VCOL was overhauled in 2010, whereas the URCOL has not been meaningfully updated in almost 40 years.
In August 2021 and 2022, the Ministry of Civil Affairs released draft revisions to the URCOL and VCOL, respectively, for public comment. Without going into details, both drafts would strengthen the Party’s control of those community organizations, clarify their composition and duties, refine their election procedures, strengthen transparency requirements and oversight mechanisms, and ensure adequate governmental support for their work. Since 2023, the NPC Social Development Affairs Committee has assumed the State Council’s responsibility to submit the bills to the NPCSC, and the Communist Party’s Central Social Work Department, established in 2023, appears to have played an important role in shaping subsequent drafts. In addition, the bill to modify the VCOL is now styled as an “amendment” [修正] rather than a “revision” [修订], suggesting it now has a narrower scope. We expect both bills to pass after two or three reviews.
The State Council submitted the remaining three bills.
1. Draft Social Assistance Law [社会救助法]. China has long sought to enact such a Law, which has been listed in each of the NPCSC’s five-year legislative plans since 2003. The now-defunct State Council Office of Legislative Affairs released a draft for public comment in 2008, but it never moved forward. After the State Council issued the 2014 Interim Measures on Social Assistance [社会救助暂行办法]—an administrative regulation—the legislative process appears to have paused altogether. In August 2020, the Communist Party and State Council jointly released a policy document on reforming the social assistance system. The Ministry of Civil Affairs then quickly followed up with a new draft Social Assistance Law that incorporated core provisions of the policy document.
Under that draft, “social insurance” is an umbrella term for various social safety-net programs, most notably “minimum subsistence assistance” [最低生活保障] and “assistance and support for persons in extreme hardship” [特困人员救助供养] (i.e., elderly individuals, persons with disabilities, or minors who cannot work and have no source of income or support). In addition to those covered by these two programs, other low-income households, individuals affected by disasters, and homeless individuals without means of support, among others, are also eligible for assistance under the draft. The draft also lists the various forms of assistance, including support for basic living, medical expenses, education, housing, and employment. It also lays down the basic procedures for applying for and granting assistance, while assigning local governments the primary responsibility for setting eligibility criteria and benefit levels. We expect the bill to pass after three reviews.
2. Draft Healthcare Security Law [医疗保障法]. In 2021, the National Healthcare Security Administration released a draft of this Law for public comment. That draft provides that China’s healthcare security system is centered around the “basic medical insurance” [基本医疗保险] as the core, supported by “medical assistance” [医疗救助] (i.e., government subsidies to eligible low-income individuals to cover health insurance premiums and out-of-pocket medical expenses), and supplemented by other forms of coverage (such as commercial health insurance). The Law would therefore regulate, among other matters, the financing of and payments from healthcare security funds; the management and oversight of those funds; the procurement, pricing, and provision of medical and pharmaceutical services paid for by the funds; and the provision of administrative services by designated handling agencies, including enrollment and reimbursement. We expect the bill to pass after three reviews.
3. Draft amendment to the Food Safety Law [食品安全法]. In January 2024 and February 2025, the State Administration for Market Regulation (SAMR), China’s national food regulator, released two different amendments to the Food Safety Law for public comment. The 2024 draft would require companies to register with SAMR before producing or marketing liquid infant formula—the same requirement that now applies to infant formula powder. As SAMR explained, although all liquid formula products sold in China were imported and the domestic market remained small, it believed that their liquid nature warranted stricter regulation.
The 2025 draft amendment appears to have been prompted by the revelation in July 2024 that a state-owned food company had been transporting cooking oil in contaminated fuel tankers. The draft would therefore require a license to engage in the bulk transport of “key liquid food products” [重点液态类食品]—a catalog of which SAMR would promulgate in conjunction with the Ministry of Transport and which would presumably include cooking oil. The draft also prescribes fines for engaging in such activities without a license or in violation of the terms of a license.
The new draft submitted by the State Council likely incorporated the provisions of both prior drafts, though it is unclear if it will make other changes to the Law. Depending on its scope, we expect the bill to pass after two or three reviews.
Again, the NPCSC will hear three oversight reports next week, including a State Council report on the development of “new quality productive forces” [新质生产力]. For more information, please check out our coverage of the NPCSC’s 2025 oversight plan:
