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.

Explainer: Hong Kong Government’s Request for NPCSC Interpretation of National Security Law in Jimmy Lai Case

Editor’s Note (Dec. 30, 2022): The NPCSC on Friday, December 30 issued an interpretation of articles 14 and 47 of the Hong Kong National Security Law. Our explainer is available here.

Jimmy Lai, the Hong Kong pro-democracy activist and media tycoon, has been indicted on four national security charges and was scheduled to stand trial on Thursday. (The government has asked the court to postpone the trial in light of the development discussed below.) He is being accused of violating Hong Kong’s seditious publications law and of conspiring to “collude with a foreign country or external elements to endanger national security” under the Law on Safeguarding National Security in the Hong Kong SAR (NSL) [香港特别行政区维护国家安全法].

Recently, Lai retained Timothy Owen, an experienced British barrister, to lead his defense team. Owen, as one Hong Kong court recognized, is a “renowned specialist in criminal, public and human rights law, with substantial experience in cases concerning national security and freedom of speech.” He has appeared before Hong Kong courts in the past but is not admitted to the Hong Kong bar. Over the Hong Kong government’s objection, the Court of First Instance allowed Owen to represent Lai on an ad hoc basis. After having suffered a streak of losses on appeal, the government on Monday decided to seek help from the NPC Standing Committee (NPCSC), which has the ultimate authority to interpret the NSL. Below, we will discuss the legal battle fought in Hong Kong courts, the government’s request for NPCSC intervention, and what to expect next.

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NPCSC Seeks Public Comments on Bills on Lawmaking Reforms, Accessibility, Administrative Reconsideration & Military Reservists

The NPC Standing Committee (NPCSC) is soliciting public comments on the following four bills through November 29, 2022:

Draft NameChinese TextExplanatory Document
Legislation Law (Draft Amendment)
立法法修正草案		PDF Δ
(English)		PDF
Barrier-Free Environments Development Law (Draft)
无障碍环境建设法草案		PDFPDF
Administrative Reconsideration Law (Draft Revision)
行政复议法修订草案		PDF ΔPDF
Reservists Law (Draft)
预备役人员法草案		PDFPDF

English translations will be provided if and when available. All explanatory documents are in Chinese.

To submit comments 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:

北京市西城区前门西大街1号 邮编: 100805
No. 1 West Qianmen Avenue, Xicheng District, Beijing 100805

Please clearly write “<Draft Name in Chinese>征求意见” on the envelope.

Update (Oct. 31, 2022): A prior version of this post noted that the NPCSC’s online public consultation system was requiring users to provide a name. That requirement no longer exists.

NPCSC Session Watch: Women’s Rights, Accessibility, Administrative & Lawmaking Reforms, Military Reservists & More

Photo by Jakub Pabis on Unsplash

The Council of Chairpersons decided on Thursday, October 13 to convene the 37th session of the 13th NPC Standing Committee (NPCSC) from October 26 to 30, shortly after the Communist Party’s upcoming 20th National Congress (to open on October 16) closes. Seven bills are on the tentative agenda, which we preview below.

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Recording & Review: Ensuring Single Women’s Equal Access to Maternity Insurance (Updated)

UPDATE (Nov. 8, 2022): We have posted a full English translation of Prof. Liang’s request for review.

Image by xiongwu from freepick

Maternity insurance [生育保险] is one of the five programs that make up China’s social insurance system. Funded by employer contributions, maternity insurance reimburses women for pregnancy- and childbirth-related medical expenses and offers them a source of income during maternity leave. In all provinces except Guangdong, however, single women have been ineligible for maternity insurance benefits. Local legislation requires claimants to provide their marriage license or some other government-issued document available only to married couples, in effect barring single women from obtaining the benefits. In a legal battle that spanned four years, Zou Xiaoqi, a single mother from Shanghai, repeatedly challenged the city’s discriminatory policy in court but ultimately to no avail. (In late 2020, Shanghai suddenly dropped the marriage requirement, but reversed course just a few months later.)

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Legislation Summary: China’s New Law to Fight Telecom and Internet Fraud

Photo by Anna Tarazevich from Pexels

Telecom and online fraud has grown rampant in China in the past decade. According to the Supreme People’s Court (SPC), scammers have defrauded victims of more than 35 billion RMB (~5 billion USD) in 2020 alone. In 2021, public security organs nationwide cracked over 394,000 cases of telecom and online fraud and arrested over 630,000 suspects. Meanwhile, the crime of aiding criminal activities on information networks (including telecom and online fraud) has become the third most-prosecuted crime in China, the Supreme People’s Procuratorate (SPP) recently disclosed.

At the same time, fraudsters continue to upgrade their tactics and operations. They take advantage of new technologies to reach more potential victims and to evade prosecution. Relying on leaked or stolen sensitive personal information, they also target susceptible victims with precision by impersonating police officers and other government officials or by exploiting the victim’s personal circumstances. As domestic crackdown intensifies, many scammers have moved their operations overseas to regions such as northern Myanmar, Cambodia, and Laos. According to the SPC, as of mid-2021, more than 60% of telecom- and online-fraud cases now originate from overseas “hotspots.”

Since 2020, national criminal justice authorities, telecom regulator, and the central bank have launched multiple joint operations to crack down on the illegal trade in SIM cards as well as bank cards and other payment accounts. The Ministry of Public Security (MPS) has also worked with immigration authorities to break up rings that smuggle people overseas to become scammers. In addition, the SPC, SPP, and MPS have released two joint opinions to clarify the application of related crimes and criminal procedural rules in telecom- and online-fraud cases.

The new Law Against Telecom and Online Fraud [反电信网络诈骗法], adopted by the NPC Standing Committee on September 2, is the latest official action to tackle such crimes. It supplements criminal statutes by prescribing administrative punishments for those who organize or otherwise directly participate in less serious cases of telecom and online fraud (art. 38, para. 2). The bulk of its provisions, however, focus on preventing such fraud from occurring in the first place. Below we take a close look at this new law.

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NPCSC Amends Anti-Monopoly Law, Revises Sports Law & Adopts New Law to Protect Black Soil

A student performing a long jump at a Beijing school. Source: Unsplash.

The 13th NPC Standing Committee (NPCSC) concluded its 35th session on Friday, June 24, with the approval of four bills: amendments to the Anti-Monopoly Law [反垄断法] and the NPCSC Rules of Procedure [全国人民代表大会常务委员会议事规则], a revised Sports Law [体育法], and a new Black Soil Protection Law [黑土地保护法]. Below, we will first briefly discuss the Anti-Monopoly Law amendment before focusing on the new Sports Law and Black Soil Protection Law. We will leave the NPCSC’s updated procedural rules for a separate post.

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2022 NPC Session: Agenda & Daily Schedule

The National People’s Congress (NPC) has released its 2022 Session’s agenda and daily schedule of meetings. The Session will open on the morning of Saturday, March 5 and close on the morning of Friday, March 11, lasting a total of six and a half days. All times below are in China Standard Time (UTC +8:00). If you are new to the NPC and its annual sessions, remember to check out this FAQ.

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Translations: New Legislation on Chengdu-Chongqing Financial Court & Military Ranks for PLA Soldiers

The 13th NPC Standing Committee (NPCSC) concluded its 33rd session on Monday, February 28 adopted two short decisions that, respectively, established a Chengdu-Chongqing Financial Court and codified a system of ranks for the active-duty soldiers of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA). Below we translated the decisions and offered some brief explanations.

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NPCSC Session Watch: NPC Preparations, Military Ranks, Chengdu-Chongqing Financial Court & Report on SPC Intellectual Property Tribunal

Skyline of Yuzhong District, Chongqing. By arthurw王.

The Council of Chairpersons decided on Friday, February 18 to convene the 33rd session of the 13th NPC Standing Committee (NPCSC) from February 27 to 28. The main purpose of this two-day meeting is to prepare for the upcoming NPC session, which is scheduled to open on March 5. The meeting will, for instance, propose an agenda for the NPC session and discuss the NPCSC’s annual work report to the NPC. The meeting will therefore review only two simple bills and one report. A brief rundown follows.

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Year in Review: The NPC and the Observer in 2021

As we bid farewell to 2021, we look back at the National People’s Congress’s and our work in the past year.

Continue reading “Year in Review: The NPC and the Observer in 2021” →