Changhao Wei

Changhao Wei is the founder, manager, and editor of NPC Observer. He is a Fellow at the Paul Tsai China Center of Yale Law School, where he focuses on China’s legislative process and constitutional enforcement mechanisms. He holds a Juris Doctor degree from Harvard Law School, and a bachelor’s degree in Molecular, Cell, and Developmental Biology from the University of California, Los Angeles.

Chinese Legislature Seeks Public Comment on 5 Bills: Environmental Code, Arbitration, Atomic Energy, Development Planning & Prisoner Management

China’s national legislature, the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress (NPCSC), is soliciting public comment on the following five bills. The consultation period will end on June 13, 2025 for the draft Ecological and Environmental Code and on May 29, 2025 for the other bills.

Draft NameChinese TextExplanatory Document
Atomic Energy Law (2nd Draft)
原子能法草案二次审议稿		PDFPDF
Arbitration Law (2nd Draft Revision)
仲裁法修订草案二次审议稿		PDFPDF
Ecological and Environmental Code (Draft)
生态环境法典草案		PDFPDF
Law on National Development Plans (Draft)
国家发展规划法草案		PDFPDF
Prisons Law (Draft Revision)
监狱法修订草案		PDF ΔPDF

English translations will be provided if available. All explanatory documents are in Chinese, and all except the draft Code’s are compiled in a single PDF; the links above will take you to the corresponding pages in the PDF only if you use a desktop browser—this does not work on a phone or a tablet.

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NPCSC Session Watch: Environmental Code, Private Sector Promotion, Arbitration, Enforcement of Prison Sentences & National Development Planning

UPDATE (Apr. 30, 2025): On April 30, the NPCSC approved the Private Economy Promotion Law (effective May 20, 2025); revised the Law on the Prevention and Control of Infectious Diseases (effective Sept. 1, 2025); and adopted a decision authorizing the State Council to temporarily modify a provision of the Seed Law in the Xinjiang Pilot Free Trade Zone (effective May 1, 2025).

Tourists riding bamboo rafts on the Li River in Yangshuo, Guangxi. Photo by Changhao Wei. All rights reserved.

China’s top legislature, the 14th NPC Standing Committee (NPCSC), will convene for its fifteenth session from April 27 to 30, the Council of Chairpersons decided on Friday, April 18. 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 2025 work priorities as well as 2025 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.

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NPC 2025: Documents and Votes

The third session of China’s 14th National People’s Congress (NPC) concluded on Tuesday, March 11. Below we have compiled a list of all official documents from this session (except for two legislative reports the NPC has so far neglected to release). We have also linked to the submitted (i.e., draft) version of the six main reports for your reference. Unless otherwise noted, the documents are available in Chinese only. The vote results for each bill and resolution are listed below in brackets, in the order of yea–nay–abstention.

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NPC 2025: Agenda and Daily Schedule

China’s National People’s Congress (NPC) has released its 2025 session’s agenda and daily schedule of meetings, as well as a preliminary schedule of press events during the session. This year’s session will open on the morning of March 5 and close on the afternoon of March 11, lasting seven full days. As the NPC spokesperson announced last year, the Premier will not hold a press conference after this session (or during the remainder of this NPC’s term “absent special circumstances”).

All times below are in China Standard Time (UTC +8:00). For a primer on the NPC and its annual sessions, check out this FAQ.

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NPCSC Session Watch: Private Sector Promotion, Civil Aviation & NPC Preparations

UPDATE (Feb. 21, 2025): According to the spokesperson’s office of the NPCSC Legislative Affairs Commission, the draft Private Economy Promotion Law will not pass at the upcoming session as we expected, but will instead undergo a third and final review “as soon as possible.”

An Air China plane parked in a Chinese airport
Photo by Nicholas Fu from Pexels

China’s top legislature, the 14th NPC Standing Committee (NPCSC), will convene for its fourteenth session from February 24 to 25, the Council of Chairpersons decided on Monday, February 17.

As expected, this two-day meeting will primarily make preparations for the NPC’s 2025 session, scheduled to open on March 5. Besides discussing its annual work report to the NPC, the NPCSC will review a proposed itemized agenda for the 2025 NPC session, among other preparatory matters. While the agenda will not be finalized until March 4, the NPCSC already previewed all the agenda items last December: routine work reports, government budgets, China’s annual socioeconomic development plan, and a legislative bill.

The NPCSC will also review two pieces of legislation at its upcoming session.

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Year in Review: The NPC and the Observer in 2024

As we bid farewell to 2024, we reflect on the work of the National People’s Congress and of this publication over the past year.

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NPC Calendar: January 2025

The following laws take effect on January 1:

The NPC Standing Committee (NPCSC) is seeking public comment on the following bills through January 23:

The NPCSC’s April 29, 2020 decision (zh | en) authorizing the State Council to temporarily modify certain regulatory requirements of the Land Management Law [土地管理法], Seed Law [种子法], and Maritime Law [海商法] within the Hainan Free Trade Zone expires on January 1.

The NPCSC will convene for its next regularly scheduled session in late February.

Constitutional Social Rights vs. Collateral Consequences of Criminal Convictions

On Wednesday, December 25, China’s top legislature, the NPC Standing Committee (NPCSC), heard the annual report by its Legislative Affairs Commission (LAC) on “recording and review” [备案审查]: a process for resolving legislative conflicts that undermine China’s hierarchy of legal norms, including the supremacy of the Constitution. According to the report, private entities submitted a total of 5,682 requests for review in 2024, rebounding from what was hopefully an isolated dip in 2023 (when only 2,827 petitions were filed). This year’s report disclosed ten instances of legislation failing review, several of which merit in-depth coverage. (The rest we will discuss in a future issue of our newsletter.) Here, we will introduce two cases where the LAC—relying in part on constitutional protections for certain social rights—repudiated two types of collateral consequences imposed on individuals with criminal records: ineligibility for public-welfare benefits and employment restrictions.

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Chinese Legislature Seeks Public Comment on 7 Bills: Private Sector Promotion, Unfair Competition, Fishery Regulation, Law Propaganda & More

China’s national legislature, the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress (NPCSC), is soliciting public comment on the following seven bills through January 23, 2025:

Draft NameChinese TextExplanatory Document
Law on the Delegates to the National People’s Congress and Local People’s Congresses (2nd Draft Amendment)
全国人民代表大会和地方各级人民代表大会代表法修正草案二次审议稿		PDF ΔN/A
National Parks Law (2nd Draft)
国家公园法草案二次审议稿		PDFN/A
Law on Publicity and Education on the Rule of Law (Draft)
法治宣传教育法草案		PDFPDF
Private Economy Promotion Law (Draft)
民营经济促进法草案		PDFPDF
Anti–Unfair Competition Law (Draft Revision)
反不正当竞争法修订草案		PDF ΔPDF
Fisheries Law (Draft Revision)
渔业法修订草案		PDF ΔPDF
Hazardous Chemicals Safety Law (Draft)
危险化学品安全法草案		PDFPDF

English translations will be provided if available. All available explanatory documents are in Chinese and compiled in a single PDF; the links above will take you to the corresponding pages in the PDF only if you use a desktop browser—this does not work on a phone or a tablet. We will update the file if additional explanatory documents are released.

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NPCSC Session Watch: VAT, Anti-Corruption, Private Sector Promotion, Law Propaganda & Unfair Competition

UPDATE (Dec. 26, 2024): On December 25, the NPCSC approved the Value-Added Tax Law (effective Jan. 1, 2026); amended the Supervision Law (effective June 1, 2025); and revised the Science and Technology Popularization Law (effective immediately).

Poster has the text "abiding by laws and popularizing laws is everyone's responsibility."
“Law popularization” propaganda poster released by the justice bureau of Qingyuan, Guangdong in 2021.

China’s top legislature, the 14th NPC Standing Committee (NPCSC), will convene for its thirteenth session from December 21 to 25, the Council of Chairpersons decided on Friday, December 13. The Council proposed an agenda with ten legislative bills and several reports that might be of interest, which we preview below. It also approved the NPCSC’s 2025 work priorities as well as 2025 plans for legislative, oversight, delegates-related, and foreign affairs work; these documents will be finalized next April, and at least the first four will be publicly released thereafter.

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