Throughout this week, thousands of delegates from all over China will take their places in the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, for the annual double session. The world will pay particular attention starting tomorrow, Tuesday, when the National People’s Assembly (ANP) opens, in order to decipher the economic and diplomatic course of the Asian giant.
As an appetizer, this Monday afternoon the Consultative Assembly began, which is being held in parallel, with the presence of representatives of entities associated with the Communist Party, ethnic minorities and even celebrities from cinema and sports.
Beyond the folklore and the unanimous applause, the great political event of the year allows us to learn about the macroeconomic objectives of the Chinese government. It will also be the first time that Chinese Premier Li Qiang will present his annual report. This will hardly be able to sweeten the challenges facing the country, with economic growth (5.2% in 2023) enviable from the point of view of Europe or Taiwan (1.4%), but well below its average of the last decade.
In this way, youth unemployment is beginning to be worrying, as is the general cooling of expectations, combined with the beginning of demographic decline. Therefore, domestic consumption has not taken off, nor is it able to compensate for the loss of momentum in exports. The concern reaches the price of their companies, which lost more than 10% on the stock market last year. Not to mention the bankruptcy of its two largest real estate companies, Evergrande and Country Garden.
Many questions, which could remain unanswered. For the first time in more than three decades, the Chinese prime minister will not close the plenary session with a press conference before the national and international media. Although the questions were agreed upon in advance – as happens in other countries – this was one of the few opportunities to simulate a dialectical ping pong with communist nomenclature.
Although Xi Jinping – the most powerful Chinese leader since Deng Xiao Ping – does not need to remove his co-religionists from the spotlight, this suppression can be interpreted as a return to hermeticism. Although China has also recently made some gestures of openness, for example with the visa exemption for tourists from Spain, France, Italy, Germany and the Netherlands, for stays of less than fifteen days.
In another sign of rigidity, amendments are planned to toughen the state secrets law, with Western consulting agencies in the spotlight. On the other hand, the script provided by Beijing does not foresee important political changes, despite the fact that there had been speculation about the departure of the recovered Wang Yi in Foreign Affairs.
One of the most anticipated data, beyond the GDP growth forecasts, the trade surplus or the public deficit, is the Chinese Defense budget for 2024. Following the invasion of Ukraine and Palestine, China’s rearmament is taken as taken for granted as that of Europe. For the umpteenth year in a row. Although it is worth remembering that the People’s Republic has not fired a shot outside its borders for more than forty-five years.
The modernization of the People’s Liberation Army is directly related to an inalienable horizon for the communist regime. Namely, the reintegration of the island of Taiwan – where more than twenty million Chinese live outside the umbrella of Beijing – under the “one country, two systems” model, experimented with its pluses and minuses in Hong Kong and Macau.
However, in May, a politician, Lai Ching-te, even more secessionist than his predecessor, Tsai Ing-wen, will assume the presidency in Taipei, accompanied by a directly American vice president (although she would have renounced this passport).
Finally, say that the Chinese president and general secretary of the Communist Party (CPC), Xi Jinping, attended this Monday the inaugural meeting of the so-called Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, an advisory body made up of delegates from various organizations, in the Great People’s Palace of the Chinese capital. This Consultative Assembly is chaired by Wang Huning, considered the eminence gray of the Chinese regime and Xi Jinping’s leading ideologue.
