The Chinese National People’s Congress (NPC) and the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) are modeled after the House of Representatives and the Senate in foreign countries, giving the outside world the impression that they are China’s “parliament”. However, as we all know, under one-party dictatorship, the NPC is a rubber stamp, and the CPPCC is a political vase, a political showcase for hand clapping and hand raising.
But Xi Jinping did not have enough, and after he came to power, he turned the two sessions into tools for the Xi Family‘s power struggle, step by step. In the 2021 session, this tool will become even more obvious.
This year’s NPC, under the manipulation of Xi family figures like Li Zhanshu and Wang Chen, passed the so-called “Decision on Amending the Organic Law of the NPC. Among them, the most notable is the addition of the following two articles.
Article 31: “Between sessions of the National People’s Congress, the Standing Committee may, upon the nomination of the Premier of the State Council, decide on the appointment and removal of other members of the State Council; upon the nomination of the Chairman of the Central Military Commission, it may decide on the appointment and removal of other members of the Central Military Commission.” Article 32: “The Standing Committee may, between sessions of the National People’s Congress, decide on the removal of other individual members of the State Council on the basis of nominations by the Council of Presidents and the Premier of the State Council; and on the basis of nominations by the Chairman of the Central Military Commission, it may decide on the removal of other individual members of the Central Military Commission.”
A comprehensive review of these two articles reveals two subtleties: one, the NPC Standing Committee expands its power to appoint, remove or dismiss key members of the State Council and the Central Military Commission between sessions of the NPC, showing distrust of the nearly 3,000 NPC deputies and contracting its power to a key minority, the NPC Standing Committee, which consists of 170 people. Second, between sessions of the NPC, the removal of officials concerning the Central Military Commission is still requested by the Chairman of the Military Commission; however, the removal of officials concerning the State Council can be requested by either the Premier of the State Council or the Council of Commissioners, which is equivalent to saying that the Council of Commissioners does not cross over the Chairman of the Military Commission but can cross over the Premier of the State Council when removing officials.
Considering that the current NPC Chairman, Military Commission Chairman, and State Council Premier are Li Zhanshu, Xi Jinping, and Li Keqiang respectively, and Li Zhanshu is Xi Jinping’s close friend, confidant, and head of the Xi family army, expanding the power of the NPC Standing Committee is tantamount to expanding Li Zhanshu’s power; crossing over Li Keqiang but not Xi Jinping is tantamount to Xi Jinping and Li Zhanshu joining hands to deal with Li Keqiang. This is a reflection of the power struggle at the top of the CCP: Xi’s army against the group.
It can be seen that this amendment to the NPC Organic Law is not for the sake of legal construction or long-term stability, but for the sake of the power pattern, focusing on the power game before the 20th National Congress next year; it is not a long-term strategy, but a short-term strategy, serving Xi Jinping and Xi’s army’s quick success and immediate benefit.
The amendment to the Organic Law of the National People’s Congress is the first in nearly 40 years, but it is not a matter of amending the law, but of amending the law because of the person. Just because Xi Jinping needs to usurp his term of office and achieve re-election next year, and is eager to deploy the personnel of the State Council and the Central Military Commission at any Time, he is amending the NPC regulations without permission. Just as in the two sessions of 2018, the Constitution was amended and the term of office of the President was abolished without authorization and recklessly just because Xi Jinping personally sought to rule for a long time or for Life.
All this shows how far China’s legal system has regressed and degenerated under Xi Jinping’s rule! Not to mention that there is no intention to advance democratic politics, even the slight political progress of the CCP’s own reform and opening up has been stripped away by Xi Jinping and his army, and the country is heading for a full-scale political regression, from one-party dictatorship to one-man dictatorship, from collective leadership to one-man dictatorship.
This is certainly a sorrow for the country and the nation, but it is also a sorrow for the Chinese Communist Party as the ruling party. It is inconceivable that a party of 90 million people is unable to stop one person from acting arbitrarily! Everything is the result of the system. One-party dictatorship has become a tool for one-man dictatorship, and one-man dictatorship has become a dead end for one-party dictatorship. One-party dictatorship oppresses the nation, and one-man dictatorship oppresses the party, and the double oppression is superimposed, a vicious circle. In the long run, the only way to end up is to die together.
(March 18, 2021)
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