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.
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.
It is natural to want to connect this development to last week’s announcement that two more members of China’s Central Military Commission (CMC)—Vice Chairman Zhang Youxia [张又侠] and Member Liu Zhenli [刘振立]—had been placed under investigation for “suspected serious violations of discipline and laws.” We are not ruling out that link, but it is not obvious from the face of the readout.
Starting with the only certainty for now: there is some business that the NPCSC must attend to this week. Otherwise, it can simply move up its regular end-of-February session and hold it before the Lunar New Year holiday (which begins on February 15). There would be ample time: the meeting could start on February 9 (satisfying the seven-day notice required for non-emergency sessions) and conclude by February 14 (February sessions typically last only one or two days).
It not obvious, however, how the Credentials Committee’s report would constitute such urgent business. The NPC’s membership is in constant flux: delegates resign or get removed for misconduct, quit for personal reasons, or die—and their seats are then filled by others. They become formally disqualified (or qualified) once the Credential Committee reports those changes to the NPCSC and the latter confirms them. The Credentials Committee’s reports therefore routinely appear on the agenda of NPCSC sessions—including late-February sessions held just days before the NPC’s annual plenary meeting.
If the goal is to have the NPCSC to finalize Zhang’s and Liu’s removals from the NPC (assuming their respective electoral units had already recalled them), there is no apparent reason why it must happen this week. Losing their NPC seats will not automatically affect their military posts. The NPCSC would have to dismiss them from the CMC separately, but the proposed agenda lists no “bill of appointment or removal” [任免案]. Nor would retaining their lawmaker titles appear to impede the investigations, even though NPC delegates cannot be detained without the NPCSC’s permission (see Delegates Law art. 39, para. 2). As evidence, in the cases of Li Shangfu [李尚福] (former defense minister and CMC member) and He Weidong [何卫东] (former CMC vice chair), neither lost his NPC seat until after being removed from state positions and expelled from the Communist Party. It is unlikely that either remained at liberty pending investigation.
That leaves a final possibility: today’s readout simply did not disclose all the matters that the NPCSC will consider on Wednesday. The NPCSC might have deliberately withheld the bill that actually justifies the emergency session, though the lack of “等” (et cetera) in the readout would ordinarily indicate that all bills were disclosed, weakening this theory. Alternatively, the relevant bill may not yet be finalized, but the authorities wanted to set a meeting date first (it takes time for over 150 part-time lawmakers to gather in Beijing, whatever the emergency).
If another bill does appear, the NPCSC could be asked to remove Zhang and Liu from the CMC and potentially appoint new members. The Chinese leadership could have decided to immediately replenish the CMC for fear that a hollowed-out leadership would disrupt military operations. Or the bill could deal with something of a similarly grave nature, though it is difficult to imagine what that would be.
In sum, some emergency plainly requires the NPCSC’s action this week. Yet the Credentials Committee’s report alone seems insufficient to explain the emergency session, even if it seeks to finalize the two generals’ dismissals from the NPC. It is possible—though by no means certain—that another bill is currently hidden or still forthcoming. For now, much remains unclear, but we will learn more soon enough.
With contribution from Taige Hu