Category: NPCSC Work Plans

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.

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China’s National Legislature Releases 2023 Legislative Plan

On Monday, May 29, China’s national legislature, the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress (NPCSC), released its legislative work plan for 2023 (Plan). The Plan was preliminarily approved by the Council of Chairpersons in December 2022 and finalized on April 14. It sets forth priorities for all aspects of the NPCSC’s legislative work in 2023, which include a list of legislative projects scheduled for review or research this year. Other aspects of the NPCSC’s legislative work include upholding the Communist Party’s leadership of lawmaking, implementing the Constitution, dealing with expiring reform authorizations, and improving legislative procedure. We, as usual, will focus on the list of legislative projects in this post, but will also note a few other notable tasks included in the Plan.

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NPC Standing Committee Releases 2022 Legislative Plan

On Friday, May 6, the NPC Standing Committee (NPCSC) released its legislative plan for 2022 (Plan). The Plan was preliminarily approved in November 2021 and finalized by the Council of Chairpersons on April 11. It lists bills that are scheduled for review or research this year, and also sets forth priorities for all aspects of the NPCSC’s legislative work in 2022. As usual, we will focus on the legislative projects listed in the Plan below.

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NPC Standing Committee Releases 2021 Legislative Plan

Photo by Breakingpic from Pexels.

On Wednesday, April 21, the NPC Standing Committee (NPCSC) released its legislative plan for 2021 (Plan). The Plan was preliminarily approved in November 2020 and finalized by the Council of Chairpersons on April 16. The NPCSC’s annual legislative plans serve two primary purposes: listing bills that are scheduled for review or research each year, and laying down guiding principles for all facets of the NPCSC’s annual legislative work. As usual, we will focus on the NPCSC’s 2021 legislative agenda below.

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Analysis of 13th NPCSC Legislative Plan Pt. 2: Statistics

Two years ago this month, the 13th NPC Standing Committee (NPCSC) released its five-year legislative plan (Plan or 5YLP), a blueprint for its legislative agenda through 2023. This Plan, like its previous iterations, includes three categories of legislative projects. Category I projects are relatively ripe and should “in principle” be completed within the 13th NPCSC’s term (ending in March 2023), whereas Category II projects are less so and require additional work. Both Category I and Category II projects are numbered. By contrast, Category III includes a series of unnumbered topics for potential legislation, which was deemed not entirely feasible at the time.

Soon after this Plan was released, we published a mostly qualitative analysis, comparing it with previous Plans and distilling a few themes from it. In this long delayed second (and final) part of our analysis, we will take a primarily quantitative approach, examining the Plan and its five predecessors (the 8th, 9th, 10th, 11th, and 12th NPCSCs’ 5YLPs) from a few different angles.

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NPC Standing Committee Releases 2020 Legislative Plan

After having kept its 2019 legislative plan a secret, on Saturday, June 20, the NPC Standing Committee (NPCSC) released its legislative plan for 2020. This plan is divided into four parts. The first part, as usual, lists bills that are scheduled for review this year, while the other three lay down some all-encompassing guiding principles for the NPCSC’s legislative work in 2020. We will discuss only the first part below.

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Translation: NPCSC’s New Public Health Legislative Plan in Response to COVID-19

Editor’s Note (Oct. 2, 2020): This page is not being updated. For the latest status of each project in this legislative plan, please see the Legislation page or the projects’ individual bill pages.

On Wednesday, April 29, the NPC Standing Committee (NPCSC) released a special legislative plan in response to the COVID-19 pandemic that is devoted to improving China’s public health legislation. According to an NPCSC spokesperson, the pandemic has exposed the “gaps” in and the “weaknesses” of the current legal scheme. Because to fix those problems many laws need to be enacted or updated, the authorities thought it appropriate to formulate a legislative plan to proceed in a coordinated manner. The spokesperson also said that the legislature would approach different laws in different ways: some would need complete overhauls, while some (like newer ones) would need only “targeted” changes. Finally, as expected, the NPCSC will focus on public health legislation in the near future, and other legislative projects would be deprioritized as a result.

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NPCSC Releases Five-Year Plan on State Assets Oversight

On Wednesday, May 22, the NPC Standing Committee (NPCSC) released its first-ever five-year plan on overseeing the State Council’s management of state assets [贯彻落实《中共中央关于建立国务院向全国人大常委会报告国有资产管理情况制度的意见》五年规划（2018-2022）] (Plan). This Plan implements the Communist Party Central Committee’s December 2017 opinion on establishing a system where the State Council reports to the NPCSC on its management of state assets [关于建立国务院向全国人大常委会报告国有资产管理情况制度的意见] (Opinion). This post summarizes the main contents of these two documents.

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Analysis of 13th NPCSC Legislative Plan Pt. 1: Relisted, Dropped & New Projects

Last week, the 13th NPC Standing Committee (NPCSC) released its five-year legislative plan (“13th NPCSC Plan”), setting the contours of its legislative agenda through 2023. As a refresher, the Plan consists of three classes of projects, with 69 top-priority ones in Class I, 47 lower-priority ones in Class II, and a few potential subjects to legislate on in Class III. In this and the next post, we will take a deep dive into the new legislative plan, from both qualitative and quantitative angles. Below, we will compare the 13th NPCSC Plan with its predecessor, distill a few themes from the new plan, and highlight some new projects. The Plan is clear evidence that, unsurprisingly, the NPCSC, though the permanent body of China’s constitutionally “highest organ of State power,” does not have any independent policymaking authority but only serves to implement through legislation the Communist Party’s policy directives.

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Translation: 13th NPC Standing Committee Five-Year Legislative Plan

On Friday, the 13th NPC Standing Committee (NPCSC) held a Legislative Work Conference and released its five-year legislative plan, which we translated in full below. We will start first with a brief introduction to the NPCSC’s five-year legislative plans in general and an overview of the newest plan.

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