Taige Hu

Taige Hu has been the deputy manager of NPC Observer since July 2019. He was a research assistant from August 2018 to June 2019. He is an LL.M. candidate at the Faculty of Law, University of Cambridge. He obtained a Bachelor of Laws degree from the City University of Hong Kong in 2021.

NPCSC Seeks Public Comment on 6 Bills: State Secrets, State Council Operation, Food Security, Charity Regulation, Infectious Disease Control & Cultural Relics Protection

For an overview of key proposed changes to the Charity Law and the Law on the Prevention and Control of Infectious Diseases, please see this issue of our newsletter.

China’s national legislature, the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress (NPCSC), is soliciting public comment on the following six bills through November 23, 2023. The NPCSC also reviewed a draft Tariff Law [关税法] at its latest session, but did not release it for public comment today.

Draft NameChinese TextExplanatory Document
Law on Ensuring Food Security (2nd Draft)
粮食安全保障法草案二次审议稿		PDFPDF
Charity Law (Draft Amendment)
慈善法修正草案		PDF Δ
(English)		PDF
 State Council Organic Law (Draft Revision)
国务院组织法修订草案		PDF Δ
(English)		PDF
Law on Guarding State Secrets (Draft Revision)
保守国家秘密法修订草案		PDF Δ
(English)		PDF
Law on the Prevention and Control of Infectious Diseases (Draft Revision)
传染病防治法修订草案		PDF ΔPDF
Cultural Relics Protection Law (Draft Revision)
文物保护法修订草案		PDF ΔPDF

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.

Continue reading “NPCSC Seeks Public Comment on 6 Bills: State Secrets, State Council Operation, Food Security, Charity Regulation, Infectious Disease Control & Cultural Relics Protection” →

Translation: Five-Year Legislative Plan of China’s National People’s Congress for 2023–2028

On Thursday, September 7, 2023, China’s national legislature, the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress (NPCSC), released the five-year legislative plan for its current term ending in 2028. Since 1993, each NPCSC has adopted such a plan to outline and prioritize the legislative tasks during its five-year term. Those plans are important documents that require the approval of the Communist Party’s central leadership.

Continue reading “Translation: Five-Year Legislative Plan of China’s National People’s Congress for 2023–2028” →

NPCSC Seeks Public Comment on 5 Bills: Public Security Violations, Company Regulation, VAT, Preschool Education & Academic Degrees

China’s national legislature, the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress (NPCSC), is soliciting public comment on the following five bills through September 30, 2023:

Draft NameChinese TextExplanatory Document
Company Law (3rd Draft Revision)
公司法修订草案三次审议稿		PDFPDF
Value-Added Tax Law (2nd Draft)
增值税法草案二次审议稿		PDFPDF
Preschool Education Law (Draft)
学前教育法草案		PDFPDF
Academic Degrees Law (Draft)
学位法草案		PDFPDF
Public Security Administrative Punishments Law (Draft Revision)
治安管理处罚法修订草案		PDF
(English)		PDF

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.

Continue reading “NPCSC Seeks Public Comment on 5 Bills: Public Security Violations, Company Regulation, VAT, Preschool Education & Academic Degrees” →

NPCSC Session Watch: Administrative Reconsideration, Foreign-Related Litigation, Public Security Offenses & Education

UPDATE (Aug. 28, 2023): The NPCSC is expected to approve the draft revision to the Administrative Reconsideration Law, draft Foreign State Immunity Law, and draft amendment to the Civil Procedure Law on Friday, September 1. The draft revision to the Company Law will be subject to a fourth (and mostly likely final) review.

China’s top legislature, the 14th NPC Standing Committee (NPCSC), will convene for its fifth session from August 28 to September 1, the Council of Chairpersons decided on Monday, August 21. In addition to proposing an agenda that includes nine legislative bills, the Council also discussed a few other interesting matters at Monday’s meeting. We briefly discuss all those developments below. 

Continue reading “NPCSC Session Watch: Administrative Reconsideration, Foreign-Related Litigation, Public Security Offenses & Education” →

NPCSC Session Watch: Patriotic Education, Food Security, Accessible Environments & New Delegate Affairs Commission

UPDATE (June 26, 2023): The NPCSC is expected to approve the Barrier-Free Environments Development Law and the Foreign Relations Law on Wednesday, June 28.

Image by Pete Linforth from Pixabay (cropped)

The 14th NPC Standing Committee (NPCSC) will convene for its third session from June 26 to 28, the Council of Chairpersons decided on Friday, June 16. Eight bills, including six draft laws, are on the session’s tentative agenda, which we preview below.

Continue reading “NPCSC Session Watch: Patriotic Education, Food Security, Accessible Environments & New Delegate Affairs Commission” →

Term Review: How Long Did It Take the 13th NPC to Pass a Law?

The five-year term of the 13th National People’s Congress (NPC) recently ended. At the risk of overpromising, we plan to write a few end-of-term reviews on different aspects of the 13th NPC’s lawmaking over the next several months. In this first installment, we will try to answer the question “how long does it take the (last) NPC to pass a bill?”—as well as subsidiary questions like “when is [insert bill of your choice] up for its next reading?” and “how many reviews will the bill go through?”

Continue reading “Term Review: How Long Did It Take the 13th NPC to Pass a Law?” →

NPC 2023: Documents and Votes

The first session of China’s 14th National People’s Congress (NPC) concluded on Monday, March 13. Below we have compiled a list of all official documents from this session. Unless otherwise noted, all documents are available in Chinese only.

Where available, the vote results for each bill, resolution, and personnel matter are also listed below in brackets, in the order of yea – nay – abstention, followed by the number of delegates not voting (NV), if any. Some results are presented in a spreadsheet embedded at the bottom of this page. Thank you to Twitter user @MelanievonBraun for recording the votes received by each candidate for NPC Standing Committee member based on a livestream of the proceedings and for sharing the dataset with us.

Continue reading “NPC 2023: Documents and Votes” →

A Guide to China’s 2023 State Council Restructuring

UPDATE #2 (Mar. 23, 2023): Chinese authorities released the full Party and State Institutional Reform Plan on March 16, and the new State Council announced its organizational structure on March 20. We have accordingly updated our bilingual State Council organizational chart and this guide. Click here to jump to the update.

UPDATE #1 (Mar. 10, 2023): The NPC approved the State Council Institutional Reform Plan on March 10 and has released its full text, which is identical to the version discussed in this post.

On Tuesday, March 7, China unveiled details of its 2023 State Council Institutional Reform Plan (Plan) [国务院机构改革方案]. The National People’s Congress (NPC) is set to approve the Plan on March 9, ahead of its votes to appoint a new slate of State Council officials on March 10–11. This would be the ninth round of State Council reorganization since the Reform Era began. Previous rounds took place in 1982, 1988, and every five years thereafter.

Continue reading “A Guide to China’s 2023 State Council Restructuring” →

NPC 2023: Agenda and Daily Schedule

China’s National People’s Congress (NPC) has released its 2023 session’s agenda and daily schedule of meetings. This year’s session will open on the morning of March 5 and close on the morning of March 13. Lasting only eight and a half days, it is the shortest inaugural session of an NPC in at least forty years. NPC sessions in the last three years were each shortened to seven days (from typically ten) due to Covid-control measures. This year’s session is the first one held since the zero-Covid policy ended last December, but it appears the compressed meeting schedule is here to stay. 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.

Continue reading “NPC 2023: Agenda and Daily Schedule” →

NPC 2023: Amendments to China’s “Statutory Constitution” of Lawmaking

Editor’s Note (Mar. 16, 2023): We have updated this post in accordance with the final text of the amendments adopted on March 13. The original version of this post is archived here.

For the ninth year in a row, China’s National People’s Congress (NPC) considered and adopted legislation at its annual session earlier this month. This year’s bill was amendments to the Legislation Law [立法法] (Bill), previously reviewed in October and December 2022. The Legislation Law is an important statute with semi-constitutional status. It serves three principal purposes: it demarcates the legislative authority of various state institutions; regulates (to varying extent) their legislative procedures; and prescribes a hierarchy of legal norms, along with the attendant mechanism to enforce that hierarchy, called “recording and review” [备案审查].

The Bill has made an array of amendments to provisions in all three areas. In this post, we will offer a relatively thorough discussion of the Bill, proceeding in the order of legislative authority, procedure, and hierarchy. In each section below, we will discuss more important amendments in the order they appear in the Bill, and briefly summarize minor ones at the end of the section. We will not mention amendments that simply repeat the provisions of other laws. All in-line citations are to the Legislation Law as amended by the Bill.

Continue reading “NPC 2023: Amendments to China’s “Statutory Constitution” of Lawmaking” →