Covering China’s National People’s Congress and its Standing Committee
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.
China’s national legislature, the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress (NPCSC), is soliciting public comment on the following five bills through July 27, 2024:
English translations will be provided if available. All 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.
The following post was originally published on Verfassungsblog. Thanks to the editors of Verfassungsblog for careful editing and to Zhu Jiawei and Jeremy Daum for helpful conversations about earlier drafts of this post. The citations in this post have been reformatted in accordance with NPC Observer’s style. Additional information that may be helpful to the readers of this site, including the original Chinese of important terms, is included in brackets. Both the original post and this crosspost are published under the Creative Commons BY-SA 4.0 license. Please cite the original version.
Caption and (blurred) initial paragraphs of the Decision as published in the NPCSC Gazette.
In December 2023, China’s national legislature, the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress (NPCSC), adopted the Decision on Improving and Strengthening the System of Recording and Review (Decision) [关于完善和加强备案审查制度的决定], a major bill aimed at reforming “recording and review” (R&R) [备案审查]—China’s system of parallel processes for resolving legislative conflicts. Under R&R, an enacting body—that is, a governmental body authorized to issue documents of a legislative nature—must file its legislation with the designated reviewing body for subsequent review. The reviewing body is either a legislative or an administrative organ, as Chinese courts lack the power to review and invalidate legislation. Among all reviewing bodies, the NPCSC is the most powerful, because its jurisdiction extends to all major sub-statutory norms and it alone holds the power of constitutional review. Below, I will use “R&R” to refer just to the NPCSC’s process, as it will be the focus of this post.
UPDATE (June 29, 2024): On June 28, the NPC Standing Committee (NPCSC) revised the Emergency Response Law (effective Nov. 1, 2024) and the Border Health and Quarantine Law (effective Jan. 1, 2025); passed the Rural Collective Economic Organizations Law (effective May 1, 2025) and an amendment to the Accounting Law (effective July 1, 2024); and approved a decision authorizing the State Council to suspend certain provisions of the Food Safety Law in the Hainan Free Trade Port (effective Oct. 1, 2024).
China’s top legislature, the 14th NPC Standing Committee (NPCSC), will convene for its tenth session from June 25 to 28, the Council of Chairpersons decided on Monday, June 17. The Council proposed an agenda with ten legislative bills, all of which are pending bills that return for further review. The agenda also includes a report by the State Council that might be of wider interest. We briefly discuss these items below.
The 14th NPC Standing Committee (NPCSC) will convene for its 10th session in late June. The Council of Chairpersons is expected to meet in mid-June to decide on the agenda and dates of the session.
The NPCSC’s April 29, 2021 decision (zh | en) authorizing the State Council to temporarily suspend or relax certain regulatory requirements in seven laws1 within China’s free trade zones will expire on July 1. The NPCSC is expected to codify the reforms (in whole or in part) or extend the authorization at the upcoming session.
The State Council’s request for an authorization to allow mortgaging the right to use rural house sites [宅基地使用权] (which is otherwise prohibited by the Civil Code [民法典]) in selected localities—submitted and last reviewed by the NPCSC in June 2022—may return for further review.
The session may also consider one or more bills scheduled for an initial review this year by the NPCSC’s 2024 legislative work plan.
On Wednesday, May 8, China’s national legislature, the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress (NPCSC), released its legislative work plan for 2024 (Plan). The Plan was preliminarily approved by the Council of Chairpersons in December 2023 and finalized on April 16. It sets forth priorities for all aspects of the NPCSC’s legislative work in 2024, which include a list of legislative projects slated for review or research this year. Other aspects of the NPCSC’s legislative work include dealing with expiring reform authorizations; conducting constitutional review of draft laws; improving the quality of legislation and legislative procedure; and raising public awareness of the NPC’s legislative activities. As usual, we will focus on the list of legislative projects in this post, but will also note a few other notable tasks included in the Plan.
China’s national legislature, the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress (NPCSC), is soliciting public comment on the following six bills through May 25, 2024:
English translations will be provided if and when available. All 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.
To submit comment online, please refer to this guide. Comments can also be mailed to the NPCSC Legislative Affairs Commission [全国人大常委会法制工作委员会] at the following address:
UPDATE (Apr. 26, 2024): On April 26, 2024, the NPCSC approved the Academic Degrees Law (effective Jan. 1, 2025) and the Tariff Law (effective Dec. 1, 2024). It also adopted the amendments to the Agricultural Technology Popularization Law, Minors Protection Law, and Biosecurity Law. For reasons unknown, the State Council’s request for an authorization to pilot reforms of the Food Safety Law in the Hainan Free Trade Port was not put to a vote.
Wind farm in Shanxi. Photo by Hahaheditor12667 (cropped). CC BY-SA 4.0.
China’s top legislature, the 14th NPC Standing Committee (NPCSC), will convene for its ninth session from April 23 to 26, the Council of Chairpersons decided on Tuesday, April 16. The Council proposed an agenda with ten legislative bills, which we preview below. It also approved the NPCSC’s 2024 work priorities as well as 2024 plans for legislative, oversight, and delegates-related work, which we expect will be released after the upcoming session.
Here is our recap of NPC-related events in April 2024 at our monthly newsletter.
A draft version of this post was published earlier by mistake. We apologize for the error and the confusion.
The 14th NPC Standing Committee (NPCSC) will convene for its 9th session in late April. The Council of Chairpersons is expected to meet in mid-April to decide on the agenda and dates of the session.
The session is likely to review the following bills:
The NPCSC is expected to release its 2024 work priorities and 2024 plans for legislative, oversight, and delegates-related work after this month’s session.
On Friday, March 8, 2024, the Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) unveiled a controversial Safeguarding National Security Bill(Bill) to discharge the city’s duty under Article 23 of its Basic Law to enact national security legislation and to supplement the Hong Kong National Security Law (HKNSL) that was imposed on the city in 2020. The government’s sprawling proposals would create an array of broadly worded offenses, including treason, insurrection, crimes relating to state secrets, and “external interference,” and generally limit the due process rights of those accused of national security offenses (whether under the Bill, the HKNSL, or any other law).
Li Qiang presides over the second plenary meeting of the State Council on August 16, 2023.
On March 11, 2024, China’s top legislature, the National People’s Congress, voted 2883 to 8, with 9 abstentions, to revise the State Council Organic Law [国务院组织法]—the first update of the statute since its enactment in December 1982. As part of a Communist Party-directed effort to “improve the organic laws of state institutions,” the revision seeks to modernize the governing statute of China’s central government. It memorializes some of the core principles and practices concerning State Council operation that have developed since 1982 and harmonizes the statute with later-enacted laws. For instance, the revision specifies the State Council’s constitutional status, guiding ideologies, and relationship with other state organs; clarifies the functions of different State Council meetings; and incorporates existing policy measures to develop a “law-based government” [法治政府]. The practical significance of these changes is thus minimal. But they nonetheless hold great symbolic value (e.g., by codifying the State Council’s duty to uphold the Party’s leadership) or can serve an important signaling purpose (e.g., by writing into law the principle of “adhering to transparency in government affairs”).
That does not change the fact, however, that the Law remains minimalist. With only 20 articles (increased from 11), it is not only the shortest state-organ organic law but also one of the shortest national laws overall. More detailed rules on the State Council’s operation are (still) found in lower-level authorities like the latest State Council Work Rules [国务院工作规则]. For this reason, instead of providing an even shorter summary, we are posting a full translation of the revised Law below, with comments on selected provisions. 🆕 marks newly added articles, whereas 🔄 marks those without substantive changes. The remaining articles were all amended to some extent, though we won’t comment on every one of them. For details, please refer to this comparison chart (in Chinese).
🔔 Read our latest newsletter for an important programming update. We also covered the 2025 report on recording and review and the delegate bills submitted during the 2026 NPC session.
