Confident Outlook
The Great Hall of the People - home to the annual NPC and CPPCC sessionsXINHUADisregarding the cold weather high up in the mountains of Xide County in southwest China’s Sichuan Province, Pan Chengying trekked for half a day to reach the remote Huoba Village. It was February 23 and the deputy to the 12th National People’s Congress (NPC) set about to knock on every villager’s door. Her mission was simple but important in the grand scheme of things. She was there to find out what these locals needed to improve their lives.
Several days later, Pan reached Beijing to attend the Fifth Session of the 12th NPC. In her suitcase, she had a thick notebook containing all the information collected from the area she represents, and a motion of developing boarding schools in remote areas.
“These represent the hopes of the people in my hometown and I must make their voices heard by competent departments,” she said. “This is my duty as an NPC deputy. I must speak for those I represent, here in Beijing.”
Political gathering
Pan is one of the more than 5,000 NPC deputies and members of the National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) who gathered in Beijing to review the government’s work in the previous year and discuss future development. NPC deputies and CPPCC members usually serve a term of five years.
This is China’s lianghui, or Two Sessions, namely, the annual sessions of the NPC, China’s top legislature, and the CPPCC National Committee, China’s top political advisory body. This year, nearly 3,000 deputies to the NPC and more than 2,000 members of the CPPCC National Committee from different parts of China gathered in Beijing with motions and proposals in their hands from March 3 to 15.
“This is the Chinese way of democracy where the voices from even the lowest level of communities can be heard by policy makers, and problems can be solved timeously,” said Pan. In 2015, Pan submitted her motion of improving pre-school education in remote mountainous areas. Soon, a program of “one village, one kindergarten” was launched in her hometown of Liangshan Yi Autonomous Prefecture. She also suggested increasing railway transportation to places inhabited by ethnic minorities. Late last year, three more trains were added to Ganluo County of Liangshan Yi Autonomous Prefecture.
“The annual lianghui is the place not only for policy makers to learn more about local voices, but also for the outside world to know more about China,” said Wang Yiwei, Senior Researcher at the Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies of the Beijing-based Renmin University of China. “This year, the world can see confidence in China’s development from lianghui.”
Economic stability
The confidence comes from China’s steady mediumhigh economic growth, Wang noted. According to the Report on the Work of the Government delivered by Chinese Premier Li Keqiang at the opening of the NPC session on March 5, China’s GDP growth in 2017 is projected to be around 6.5 percent.
“A projected economic growth rate of approximately 6.5 percent is good news for Africa,” Garth Shelton, Associate Professor of the Department of International Relations, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa, told ChinAfrica. “And strong growth in China will translate into increased demand for African commodities.”
According to Shelton, China’s continued commitment to opening up and international trade will be welcomed in Africa. The growth in China-Africa trade over the last 20 years has been a key factor in Africa’s economic development.
China’s economic confidence also improves global confidence. Statistics show that in 2016, China’s economic growth contributed more than 30 percent to world economic growth. “China’s opening door will not close again,” said Chinese President Xi Jinping at a discussion of the NPC Shanghai delegation, of which he is a member, on March 5. Xi added that China will stick to an all-round opening-up policy, and continue to liberalize and facilitate trade and investment.
In 2016 alone, China made $170.1 billion outbound direct investment and Chinese tourists made more than 120 million overseas visits. Africa is among the main destinations of China’s investment and tourists.
“I hope the outcome of the Two Sessions will promote Chinese investment in Africa and assistance with the building of roads, railway lines and related infrastructure,” Shelton said. “China’s assistance in this regard provides the foundation for Africa’s industrialization and modernization.”
(With additional reporting from Lu Anqi in Johannesburg)
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SPECIAL Report Development Target Challenges
During the lianghui, ChinAfrica reporters spoke to NPC deputies and CPPCC National Committee members to hear their thoughts on how to achieve national development targets. Edited excerpts follow:
Li Yining, CPPCC National Committee member and renowned economist:
The Report on the Work of the Government sets this year’s projected GDP growth at around 6.5 percent, adding that we will strive to achieve better results.
Efficiency is the most important thing in economics, and it rests on two foundations. The first is materials and technology, as well as the number of factories, equipment, the quantity and quality of raw materials and the capacity of the labor force. Materials and technology are the guarantee for normal growth.
But efficiency has another foundation, that is, the moral basis. For example, people’s sense of identity is a huge force. People’s feeling of being in the same boat means cohesion and a common sense of crisis. Moral power is important for it can yield unexpected results, which has been demonstrated in previous efforts to prevent and control natural disasters. Whether we can achieve an economic growth rate higher than 6.5 percent depends on whether we can make breakthroughs in the foundations of efficiency.
Major General Chen Zhou, NPC deputy and Senior Researcher at the Academy of Military Sciences, People’s Liberation Army:
China’s defense spending is compatible with our economic conditions and national defense requirements and is very appropriate and reasonable.
The defense budget will be used to support national defense and military reforms as well as military equipment upgrading. A large proportion will go to improving training and living conditions of local-level troops and cultivating high-caliber military officers. The spending will also be used to support the integration of military and civilian [technologies].
China’s growing global status and influence requires it to shoulder more international responsibilities and obligations, and the military is indispensable for doing this. China has taken part in UN peacekeeping operations since 1990. The country has also participated in security cooperation in anti-terrorism work and humanitarian aid. The Chinese military will better fulfill its international obligations to make a greater contribution to world peace and development.
Chen Xiwen, Deputy Director of the Committee for Economic Affairs of the CPPCC National Committee:
To push forward agricultural supply-side reform, the most important thing is to carry out innovation in two ways. First, promoting innovation in agricultural science and technology. New technology should be adopted, from seed breeding to plant cultivation and livestock feeding, as well as in subsequent product processing, storage and transportation, to achieve higher efficiency.
Second, promoting innovation in the agricultural management system. Since China has a large population and relatively limited farmland, the overall scale of agricultural production is small, especially that of land-intensive products such as grain, cotton and oil crops. In the short term, the relatively small scale and low efficiency of China’s agricultural production cannot be changed. However, this can be remedied to a certain extent through innovation in the agricultural management system.