Translation: Communist Party’s Proposals for Amending the P.R.C. Constitution (2018) (Updated)

Editor’s Note (Jan. 5, 2023): The NPC adopted a Constitutional Amendment based on the following Proposals on March 11, 2018. Readers are strongly recommended to consult our translation and annotations of the Amendment instead of this post.

UPDATE (Feb. 26, 2018): This translation now also appears on China Law Translate.


The Communist Party today released full text of its proposals for amending the P.R.C. Constitution, which are translated below. In translating this document, we mostly followed the official English translation of the Constitution that is available on the NPC’s website. Some texts below are formatted to enhance readability. Our comments are in brackets. The translation is subject to further modifications.

As we have said before, the Constitutional Amendment eventually adopted by the NPC in March will most likely be identical to the following proposals, except for the use of maybe one or two characters or punctuations. No governmental or Party entity is publicly soliciting comments on the following proposals.

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Translation: NPCSC Decision on Implementing the Constitutional Oath System (2018 Revision)

全国人民代表大会常务委员会关于实行宪法宣誓制度的决定
Decision of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress on Implementing the Constitutional Oath System

(2015年7月1日第十二届全国人民代表大会常务委员会第十五次会议通过 2018年2月24日第十二届全国人民代表大会常务委员会第三十三次会议修订)
(Adopted by the 15th Session of the Standing Committee of the 12th National People’s Congress on July 1, 2015; Revised by the 33rd Session of the Standing Committee of the 12th National People’s Congress on February 24, 2018)

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Translation: Second Draft of the Supervision Law (监察法二次审议稿)

The NPC Standing Committee (NPCSC) conducted a second reading of the draft Supervision Law (监察法) in late December 2017, but has yet to release the second draft for public comments. With the 2018 NPC session only a month away, we think there is now no realistic possibility that the NPCSC will do so. That said, we do have a copy of the second draft that was released by the China Law Review on its WeChat account. For various reasons, including the fact that this document reflects all the changes made to the first draft as reported by statemedia, we are convinced of its authenticity.

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Translation: National Anthem Law of the People’s Republic of China

The following translation also appears on China Law Translate, with any additional changes made by users of that website.

Order of the President of the People’s Republic of China
No. 75

The National Anthem Law of the People’s Republic of China, having been adopted by the 29th Session of the Standing Committee of the 12th National People’s Congress on September 1, 2017, is hereby promulgated, to take effect on October 1, 2017.

Xi Jinping, President of the People’s Republic of China
September 1, 2017

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Likely Developments Surrounding the Draft National Anthem Law (with Translation)

Last month, the NPC Standing Committee (NPCSC) conducted an initial review of a draft National Anthem Law (Draft) (an English translation of which is attached to this post). Much of the media coverage so far has focused on provisions that ban the use of the national anthem at “inappropriate occasions” such as funerals and provide for up to 15 days of detention for “distorted or derogatory” rendition of the anthem, titled “March of the Volunteers.” With only 15 articles, the Draft contains language that is fairly easy to understand. We therefore won’t spend time scrutinizing its content here. Instead, we will take a look at likely developments surrounding the Draft, based on this report by Xinhua.

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