China’s top legislature, the 14th NPC Standing Committee (NPCSC), will convene for its 24th session from August 25 to 28, the Council of Chairpersons decided on Tuesday, August 18, 2026. Among other business, the session will consider ten legislative bills, according to the agenda proposed by the Council. The NPCSC will also hear five oversight reports, including the State Council’s mid-year reports on the implementation of the 2026 development plan and the execution of the 2026 budget, as well as its report on the management of government debt in 2025. As usual, we preview the session’s legislative agenda below.
Returning Bills
Eight bills are scheduled for further review.
First, the draft Healthcare Security Law [医疗保障法] and draft Cultivated Land Protection and Quality Improvement Law [耕地保护和质量提升法] return for their third—and most likely final—review.
Second, the draft revision to the Agriculture Law [农业法], draft revision to the National Defense Mobilization Law [国防动员法], and draft amendment to the Lawyers Law [律师法] return for their second review and are expected to pass as well.
Third, the draft revision to the Enterprise Bankruptcy Law [企业破产法], draft revision to the Banking Supervision and Administration Law [银行业监督管理法], and draft revision to the Water Law [水法] will also undergo their second round of deliberations. They are likely to pass by early 2027.
New Bills
Two new bills have been submitted for review.
First, the State Council submitted a draft revision to the Road Traffic Safety Law [道路交通安全法]. Enacted in 2003, this Law has seen only three limited amendments focusing on its civil-liability and administrative-penalty provisions. This proposed comprehensive revision, the first in over two decades, is long in the making. State Council agencies twice sought public comment on proposed updates in 2015 and 2021, respectively. The 2021 draft would revamp provisions touching on everything from vehicle registration, road safety, and road management to civil liability, administrative penalties, and enforcement procedures. It would also add a new provision regulating the road testing of vehicles with automated-driving functions and their eventual marketing and road use. It is unclear to what extent the bill has retained the contents of that draft. We expect the bill to pass after three reviews.
Second, the State Supervision Commission submitted a draft Anti–Transnational Corruption Law [反跨境腐败法]. This law was included in the current NPCSC’s five-year legislative plan as a top-priority project in fall 2023, before appearing in the Communist Party’s 2024 Third Plenum decision the following summer, thus taking on a higher profile. While no draft has been made public, Caixin previously reported, citing scholars close to the drafting process, that the Law was designed as a “preventive statute” governing “compliance management as well as jurisdictional and procedural issues involving Chinese companies’ overseas branches and foreign businesses’ branches in China,” while also addressing the cross-border recovery of assets and fugitives in corruption cases. We expect the Law to pass after two or three reviews.