China’s top legislature, the 14th NPC Standing Committee (NPCSC), will convene for its 22nd session from April 27 to 30, the Council of Chairpersons decided on Monday, April 20. According to the Council’s proposed agenda, the session will consider eight legislative bills, which we preview below. The Council also approved the NPCSC’s 2026 work priorities as well as 2026 plans for legislative, oversight, delegates-related, and foreign-affairs work. We expect all but the foreign-affairs work plan to be released after the upcoming session, likely in early May.
Returning Bills
Four bills are scheduled for further review.
The draft revision to the Prisons Law [监狱法] and the draft Social Assistance Law [社会救助法] will return for their third—and most likely final—review.
The draft Healthcare Security Law [医疗保障法] and the draft Cultivated Land Protection and Quality Improvement Law [耕地保护和质量提升法] return for their second review. Both are likely to pass within the year.
New Bills
Four new bills have been submitted for review.
First, the NPC Financial and Economic Affairs Committee submitted a draft revision to the Law on the State-Owned Assets of Enterprises [企业国有资产法]. Enacted in 2008, this Law governs one of the three main categories1 of state-owned assets in China: “state-owned assets of enterprises” [企业国有资产]. This term is defined as “the rights and interests formed by the State’s various forms of investment in enterprises,” including wholly state-owned companies and state equity stakes in other enterprises, whether controlling or not. The Law regulates the State’s role as investor, the governance of state-invested enterprises, and major transactions involving state-owned assets. In 2024, the NPCSC issued a report calling for clarifying the State’s role as investor and reducing administrative interference; strengthening the corporate governance and internal controls of state-owned enterprises; improving the basic rules governing the valuation, transfer, and disposition of state-owned assets; and reforming the management of revenue from state-owned capital. We expect the revision to undergo three reviews.
Second, the NPC Agriculture and Rural Affairs Committee submitted a draft revision to the Agriculture Law [农业法], China’s “basic law” on agricultural and rural affairs.2 Originally adopted in 1993, the Law was last substantially updated in 2002. Since then, the NPCSC has inspected its enforcement four times, underscoring its importance. The NPCSC’s most recent inspection report from 2024 recommended amendments to strengthen food security, farmland protection, support for agricultural sci-tech innovation, and green agricultural development. We expect the revision to pass after two or three reviews.
Third, the State Council and the Central Military Commission jointly submitted a draft revision to the National Defense Mobilization Law [国防动员法], enacted in 2010. In October 2021, the NPCSC authorized an open-ended program to reform the national defense mobilization system, suspending certain (unspecified) provisions in four statutes—including this Law—that concern “the leadership and management structure, the allocation of functions among military and civil authorities, and the establishment of working institutions for national defense mobilization . . . as well as the direction and use of resources for national defense mobilization.” While the specific reform measures have not been released, the 2020 revision to the National Defense Law [国防法] indicates that the State Council will no longer play a leading role in defense mobilization. We expect the revision to pass after two or three reviews.
Lastly, the State Council submitted a draft revision to the Water Law [水法], first enacted in 1988 and revised once in 2002. In an article published last year, a researcher at a think tank affiliated with the Ministry of Water Resources (MWR) argued that, after the 2002 revision, the Law no longer functions as a comprehensive statute governing water conservancy, but instead as a specialized statute focused on water resources—their development, use, conservation, protection, and management. The researcher calls for expanding the Law’s scope to cover three additional areas: aquatic environments, aquatic ecosystems, and water security. Although, unusually, neither the MWR nor the Ministry of Justice released a draft for public comment, an MWR research report on the bill discloses it took an approach broadly consistent with scholarly proposals, seeking to restore the Law as a “basic law” on water.
- The other two are state-owned assets of administrative organs and public-service institutions, and state-owned natural resources. ↩︎
- Indeed, it was initially titled the Basic Agriculture Law [农业基本法] before the NPCSC deleted the first word to expedite its passage. Otherwise, officials argued, the Law would have qualified as a “basic law” and therefore constitutionally required approval by the full NPC (which would not convene until nine months later)—as if changing the bill’s title alone could also alter its substance. ↩︎