Tag: Tariff Law

NPCSC Session Watch: National Defense Education, (Atomic) Energy, Anti–Money Laundering & Official Statistics

UPDATE (Apr. 26, 2024): On April 26, 2024, the NPCSC approved the Academic Degrees Law (effective Jan. 1, 2025) and the Tariff Law (effective Dec. 1, 2024). It also adopted the amendments to the Agricultural Technology Popularization Law, Minors Protection Law, and Biosecurity Law. For reasons unknown, the State Council’s request for an authorization to pilot reforms of the Food Safety Law in the Hainan Free Trade Port was not put to a vote.

Wind farm in Shanxi. Photo by Hahaheditor12667 (cropped). CC BY-SA 4.0.

China’s top legislature, the 14th NPC Standing Committee (NPCSC), will convene for its ninth session from April 23 to 26, the Council of Chairpersons decided on Tuesday, April 16. The Council proposed an agenda with ten legislative bills, which we preview below. It also approved the NPCSC’s 2024 work priorities as well as 2024 plans for legislative, oversight, and delegates-related work, which we expect will be released after the upcoming session.

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NPCSC Session Watch: Patriotic Education, State Council’s Governing Statute, State Secrets, Defense Minister Replacement & Legislative Aftermath of Covid-19

UPDATE (Oct. 24, 2023): On October 24, the NPCSC approved a revision to the Marine Environmental Protection Law and passed the Patriotic Education Law. Both will take effect on January 1, 2024.

In addition, the NPCSC adopted a decision authorizing the State Council to allow local governments to issue bonds within 60% of their annual new bond quotas before the NPC approves their annual debt ceilings for the next five years. It also approved an adjustment to the 2023 central government budget, authorizing the issuance of RMB 1 trillion of special treasury bonds for post-disaster reconstruction and related projects.

Finally, the NPCSC decided to remove Li Shangfu as defense minister, state councilor, and member of the Central Military Commission. It also removed Qin Gang from his state councilor position, after having removed him as foreign minister in July.

Before getting to the news, a note on our new link-archiving policy: After the NPC website’s recent URL change had created an acute link-rot problem for us, we announced a plan to deal with this particular incident and to prevent link rot going forward. One big change you will likely notice is that, with some exceptions, online sources subject to mainland China’s censorship regime (including all government websites) will be archived using perma.cc. Those visiting from mainland China should be aware, however, that perma.cc is blocked by the Great Fire Wall.

China’s top legislature, the 14th NPC Standing Committee (NPCSC), will convene for its sixth session from October 20 to 24, the Council of Chairpersons decided on Friday, October 13. The session will tentatively discuss ten legislative bills, in addition to a potential motion to replace China’s current defense minister. We preview these agenda items below.

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Tracking China’s Progress Towards Law-Based Taxation

UPDATE (Mar. 12, 2026): The NPC revoked the 1985 authorization on Thursday, March 12, 2026. The four remaining interim tax regulations issued under that authorization remain in effect.

TAX

China currently collects 18 types of taxes. They will generate an estimated total of 8 trillion RMB in revenue for the Central Government in 2018. But only six of them—providing only about a third of the central tax revenue—are imposed by laws [法律] enacted by the legislature, the National People’s Congress (NPC) or its Standing Committee (NPCSC). The rest are governed only by interim regulations [暂行条例] adopted by the State Council—the Central Government itself. The enormous taxing power the State Council now wields was in fact granted by the NPC in 1984. Now, over three decades later, the NPC is reclaiming that power by gradually elevating the interim regulations into laws, with an eye to complete the process by 2020. In this post, we will explain why the NPC made the power grant in the first place and discuss what it has recently been doing to reassert its control over taxation.

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