
On July 18, the Communist Party’s 20th Central Committee at its Third Plenum adopted the Decision on Further Deepening Reform Comprehensively to Advance Chinese-Style Modernization (Decision)1 [关于进一步全面深化改革 推进中国式现代化的决定], which was made public on Sunday, July 21. (Here is a bilingual version of the Decision in PDF and HTML.) The day after the Plenum, the Party Group of the NPC Standing Committee (NPCSC) met to study the Decision and other documents from the Plenum. The meeting hailed the Decision as a “programmatic document” [纲领性文件] for further reforms and called on the NPC apparatus to, consistent with the NPC’s functions and responsibilities, “take solid steps to advance the legislative, oversight, and other tasks and initiatives ordered by the Plenum.” Such tasks and initiatives fall into three slightly overlapping categories: (1) reforms of the NPC itself and local people’s congresses; (2) explicit legislative tasks for the NPC; and (3) other reforms that would require NPC action to implement. Although Xi Jinping has reportedly instructed that the Decision not include any “general reform measures, developmental measures, or reform measures that central authorities had already deployed and were being implemented,” that has not always been the case—at least for those NPC-related reforms. And finally, the Decision notably sets 2029, when the PRC celebrates its 80th anniversary, as the deadline for completing its myriad reform tasks. Below we take a brief look at each of the three categories of NPC-related reforms by excerpting from the Decision and supplementing with our commentaries.
Continue reading “The NPC and the 2024 Third Plenum Decision”



