As China enters March, the season for the annual sessions of the National People’s Congress and the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (the “two sessions”), the official Chinese media under the control of the Communist Party of China (CPC) has stepped up its positive propaganda on the two sessions. At the same Time, the value and significance of the two sessions in the eyes of the Chinese public has been increasingly disregarded and discredited. Critics say that the entertainment value previously presented to the Chinese public at the two sessions is now much less than it once was.
Official propaganda and China’s reality
The Chinese Communist authorities, who established the “People’s Republic of China” in 1949 through an armed seizure of power, claimed that they were practicing a system of people’s congresses, a true democracy in which the people were the masters of their own house. Over the past decades, the Communist authorities have spent huge sums of money each year to hold people’s congresses at all levels. But the exact amount of money spent has always been a state secret of the CCP.
In 2005, some people in China estimated through sporadic information from local governments that China was spending about 5 billion yuan a year to convene people’s congresses at all levels. Chinese officials do not admit or deny that figure. Officials have also not announced how much money has been spent on annual NPC meetings in recent years.
In addition, security measures at this year’s sessions were tighter than ever. Official media reported earlier that cars for the National People’s Congress had to pass 37 medical checks, and that the security program for the two sessions was in full swing, with Beijing opening “three lines of defense. These additional security measures have added to the cost of this year’s sessions, which are currently a Chinese state secret.
As the 2021 session season approaches, China’s official media is, as usual, running a positive propaganda and glorification campaign. The official Chinese traditional media as well as the online media are filled with such positive propaganda as.
— A look ahead to the two sessions in 2021: China’s signals at the crossroads of history (Xinhua, March 3)
–The world looks at the two sessions 丨Many countries expect encouraging messages from the two sessions (CCTV News client, March 3)
–AI Watch the Two Sessions: The 13th Five-Year Plan’s People’s Livelihood Report Card from Netizens’ Hot Topics (March 2, CCTV)
–Two sessions of the survey results: rule of law, social security, rural revitalization most concerned (March 2 People’s Daily Online)
However, critics say that these official propaganda are full of rhetoric, empty words and rhetoric, lacking in substance, or they are evasive and obscure on topics of public concern, with no substance other than vague propaganda.
For example, the People’s Daily, the central organ of the Communist Party of China, said under the heading of “The results of the two sessions of the National People’s Congress: the rule of law, social security and rural revitalization are the most concerned”: “This year, the number of netizens who chose the term ‘rule of law This is also the first time that the term ‘rule by law’ has topped the list of hot words since the two sessions of the survey were launched. This result shows that a series of rule of law construction initiatives in China in the past year have penetrated the hearts of people, and also reflects the concern and expectation of the whole society for the construction of a rule of law China in the opening year of the ’14th Five-Year Plan’.”
Critics say that People’s Daily and the CCP-controlled media have been secretive about why Chinese netizens are most concerned about “rule by law,” avoiding the reality in China today, which is that the rule of law in China under the CCP has recently deteriorated at an accelerated pace, with the CCP institutions from the central to local levels being one-party dictatorships, powerful and lawless. The Chinese public can be arrested, prosecuted, and sentenced for pocket crimes such as “picking quarrels and provoking trouble” if they protest against this wanton violation of the law.
In addition, the Chinese Communist authorities have increasingly enforced the “rule of law” with Chinese characteristics, cracking down on prominent critics in the name of economic crimes, including the arrest and sentencing of Ren Zhiqiang, a Beijing-based real estate developer who criticized the Xi Jinping-led Communist authorities’ response to the new coronavirus Epidemic, and the crackdown on the authorities. The arrest and sentencing of Geng Xiaoxiang, a businessman who protested against Tsinghua University professor Xu Zhangrun.
The constitutional right to participate in politics is unattainable
Article 2 of the Constitution of the People’s Republic of China says: “All power in the People’s Republic of China belongs to the people. The organs through which the people exercise state power are the National People’s Congress and the local people’s congresses at all levels. The people manage state affairs, economic and cultural affairs, and social affairs through various channels and forms in accordance with the provisions of the law.”
But critics say that the so-called “people’s democracy” practiced by the CCP is just an alias for dictatorship, and that the People’s Congress is a title that does not live up to its name because the so-called people’s deputies do not know who decides on them, and the so-called people’s deputies do not communicate with their constituents. Shen Jilan, the longest-serving NPC deputy, has been hailed as a “living fossil” of China’s people’s congress system. A recipient of the Order of the Republic from Communist Party leader Xi Jinping, Shen once proudly said publicly that she did not communicate with her constituents as a People’s Representative.
Many Chinese feel helpless that the People’s Congress has nothing to do with the people and nothing to do with their participation in politics. These people include Chinese lawmaker Xie Yangyi.
As this year’s session approaches, Xie Yan Yi told Voice of America, “Over the years, I have not paid much attention to the so-called two sessions or any official activities, because I am not in my position, not in my politics. In the past, from the perspective of a legal person, you can say passion, enthusiasm or sense of responsibility (I am still concerned). But as time goes by, as I grow older, and as I become more aware of the political reality (I am less concerned about the two sessions). My real state now is that I don’t pay much attention anymore. I’m more concerned about the specific things that we can pay attention to within our power.”
Xie Yan Yi went on to say that he, like many other Chinese people, has a lot to say about the two sessions in terms of institutions, laws, politics, and people’s livelihoods, but he personally feels that there is no point in talking about them now; he hopes that the country, society, and community will be good, and that the country will move toward the supremacy of human rights, peace, democracy, and the rule of law.
In Xie’s view, the good situation of China depends on everyone taking their share of responsibility; personally, he applied for information disclosure during the New coronavirus outbreak in China last year, also known as the Wuhan pneumonia outbreak; legally, he also proposed the release of detainees from prisons and places of detention to alleviate the outbreak in accordance with China’s pardon law.
People’s deputies are silent in the face of national emergency
Every year, when the two sessions of the National People’s Congress meet, the official Chinese media go into overdrive to publicize the views and proposals of a certain people’s deputy or CPPCC member on issues of concern to the people. But critics have complained for years that the opinions, suggestions and speeches of these so-called people’s deputies are almost invariably either completely evasive or gossipy about all the substantive issues that Chinese people have to face.
Critics say that the official Chinese media and the so-called people’s deputies are the mouthpieces of the Chinese Communist authorities, a situation that was exposed last year when the Wuhan pneumonia epidemic broke out and became rampant; at a time when people’s lives and work were severely affected by the epidemic throughout China, the delegates to the people’s congresses at all levels in China were as dead as a doornail. Not a single comment was made on whether the authorities had concealed the epidemic, leading to its spread, or on the inhumane closure of cities in the name of preventing and controlling the epidemic, preventing people in infected areas from going out for medical treatment.
Critics also say that China is the only country in the world today that has banned people from infected areas from seeking treatment in the name of epidemic prevention, and the only country that has taken strong and effective measures to ban its own citizens from returning to their Home countries in the name of epidemic prevention. However, Chinese people’s representatives at all levels have remained silent on these issues, which are of vital interest to the Chinese people and even of Life and death.
As this year’s annual sessions of the National People’s Congress (NPC) and the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) convene, Toronto, Canada-based Writer and critic of the Chinese Communist regime Sheng Xue says that under the Communist Party’s authoritarian and dictatorial system, delegates to the two sessions must be puppets of the Communist Party.
Sheng Xue said, “In fact, the two sessions of the CCP are somewhat equivalent to a political ‘Spring Festival Gala’, where all the programs and procedures are selected, reviewed, rehearsed and checked over and over again, and then each of them is approved over and over again from all sides before they reach the final step. The final step. When it is presented in front of people, presented to the world, it is in fact all things are already a finished product.”
Sheng Xue goes on to say that the two sessions are highly similar and homogeneous to the Spring Festival Gala, a cultural entertainment program held by the Central Radio and Television Station on New Year’s Eve, because the Spring Festival Gala is also the result of layer after layer of repeated vetting, rehearsal and rehearsal, the most important of which is to ensure that it is politically foolproof; as the Chinese Communist regime places more and more emphasis on politics, the Spring Festival Gala is becoming more and more boring; the political Spring Festival Gala, i.e., the two sessions, is the same, only It is the same with the political Spring Festival, i.e., the two sessions, only more boring.
Political Participation and One-Party Dictatorship
Official spokespersons of the CCP authorities and the media controlled by the authorities have repeatedly promoted the two sessions at all levels in China as a concrete manifestation of the Chinese people’s participation in politics, a concrete manifestation of China’s people’s democracy and the legitimacy of the CCP regime. However, the CCP authorities, or the media controlled by the authorities, are now repeatedly emphasizing the so-called “four consciousnesses” (i.e., “political consciousness, awareness of the overall situation, core consciousness, and awareness of alignment”) and the “two safeguards “(i.e. “safeguarding Xi Jinping’s position as the core of the CPC Central Committee and the core of the whole Party, and safeguarding the authority and centralized leadership of the Party Central Committee”).
A source in China, who asked not to be named, told the Voice of America that the authorities put so much emphasis on the “four consciousnesses” and the “two safeguards,” stressing that the Party, the government, the military and the people in the east, west, north and south, are leading everything, and that the Party obeys the Party Central Committee and the Party Central Committee obeys Xi Jinping. The whole country has to listen to Xi Jinping’s final word, set in one, to follow the “top design” to work, the two representatives dare to say a word no? If this is the case, why bother to disturb the people to hold the two sessions? Wouldn’t it be better to publish the communiqué written by the Chinese Communist Party authorities directly?
As this year’s session approaches, Gao Yu, a retired veteran Chinese journalist, expressed her nostalgia for the sessions of the two sessions in the late 1980s and early 1990s. She said that although the sessions were also strictly and tightly politically controlled, there was after all a small voice of dissent that gave Chinese people and the international community a glimmer of hope for China’s future development.
Gao Yu, who is nearly 80 years old, said, “In the 1990s, during the discussion on whether the Three Gorges (dam should be built), there was a real NPC deputy who came out on the spot to express his opposition, a deputy from Taiwan named Huang Shunxing, and he walked out of the meeting on the spot. At that time (the two sessions) there was still something to see, and it still showed that there was democracy in the assembly and that there were different opinions.”
Some scholars who study contemporary Chinese politics and society say the two sessions in the late 1980s and early 1990s had a little bit of free expression of dissent, but the kind of freedom that many people found refreshing and harbored expectations for was short-lived, and later sessions were once notable for their entertainment, such as when Mao Xinyu, the grandson of the late Communist Party dictator Mao Zedong, preached his grandfather in absurd and nonsensical terms; for Li Xiaolin, daughter of former premier Li Peng, who earned the name Tiananmen Butcher for her active participation in the June 1989 crackdown on peaceful protesters in Beijing who wanted democracy against corruption, showed off foreign designer fashions at the two sessions and proposed a so-called “thunderous” proposal to create a moral profile for all Chinese.
Some critics and observers have pointed out that with the passage of time and technological advances, the Chinese Communist regime has now largely implemented Li Xiaolin’s so-called “thundering” proposal, which would essentially control the employment and travel of Chinese people to the precise extent the regime prefers.
Propaganda for Poverty Eradication and Poverty Creation
On the eve of this year’s two sessions of the National People’s Congress, the Communist Party authorities held a national summing-up and commendation conference in Beijing on February 25, attended by Xi Jinping, general secretary of the CPC Central Committee and president of the country, to announce that all 98.99 million rural poor people in China had been lifted out of poverty.
At the same time, Chinese official media under Xi’s control made poverty eradication and livelihood issues the focus of propaganda at the two conferences. China CCTV issued a report on March 3, saying, “In a statistical analysis of hot topics of concern to netizens at the National People’s Congress over the past five years, livelihood topics accounted for the largest proportion, with social security, poverty eradication, and stabilization and expansion of employment all being hot topics of concern to netizens every year.”
Gao Yu said that China is a large country with complex national conditions, and one of the manifestations of its complexity is that officials from the top of the Communist Party loudly preach to the whole country and the whole world about poverty eradication, but officials below do everything possible to create poverty. The poor livelihood of the vendors.
Gao Yu said she was actually a direct victim of the poverty created by local officials in Beijing. Her son was working well, but the Beijing Public Security Bureau forced his employer to fire him, leaving her Family without a livelihood and thus creating a poor household in Beijing. She said that, judging from her years of experience covering China’s news, her case could not be the exception, let alone the only one, in China, and it is no wonder that so many people in China and abroad are skeptical of the authorities’ announced goals and achievements in fighting poverty.
Sheng Xue, a writer and human rights and democracy activist from China, says that the CCP as a ruling group has ossified into a dictatorial dictatorship that is difficult to reform. For example, the CCP regime spends a huge amount of money every year to hold the two sessions, a rough calculation of 5 billion RMB in 2005, and now an unknown amount of billion. The CCP’s system dictates that it can only waste and abuse the people’s money, not take from the people and use it for the people, and cannot use such funds will be used to improve people’s livelihood, such as improving Education and healthcare.
Sheng Xue said, “The top authorities of the CCP, such as Xi Jinping, one day wish to initiate some degree, some form of improvement, I believe the overall institutional structure of the CCP now can no longer give him the space to do so.”
In a speech at a national summing-up and commendation conference on poverty eradication in Beijing on Feb. 25, Xi said China under his rule “has completed the arduous task of eliminating absolute poverty and created another human miracle that has made a mark in history.”
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