Key Takeaways From China’s Annual ‘Two Sessions’ Meeting
Appointment of Officials
The rubber-stamp legislature approved an amendment of the National People’s Congress’ (NPC) Organization Law, the first revision since the law was passed in 1982.
The law had previously ruled that the four vice premiers, five state councilors, and ministers should be nominated by the premier, approved by the NPC, signed by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leader, and appointed by the CCP’s Central Committee. The NPC’s 2,953 members from all around China, who meet once a year for the Two Sessions, don’t need to be party members but must be loyal to the CCP.
China Increases Defense Budget, Premier Orders Military to Prepare for War
China will increase its military budget to 1.35 trillion yuan (about $207.8 billion) in 2021, which is 6.8 percent higher than 2020, Chinese state-run media reported on March 6. One expert told The Epoch Times that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)’s top priority is to strengthen its military.
During the ruling party’s most important annual meeting, known as the “two sessions,” on March 5, Premier Li Keqiang said, “[We should] comprehensively strengthen the military exercises and fully prepare for war.”
“Building a strong military is one of [Chinese leader] Xi Jinping’s top tasks. His slogan is building a ‘strong China,’” U.S.-based China affairs commentator Tang Jingyuan told The Epoch Times on March 7. “I think Xi will take aggressive actions after he can take another tenure [in 2022].”
China s Military Budget Keeps Growing: Why the World Should Worry
China’s massive military budget demonstrates the central place that China’s armed forces hold in implementing (or influencing) the country’s foreign policy.
Beijing’s rising defense budget has long been a critical indicator of the nation’s economic growth and perceived security threats, offering crucial insight into the authoritarian regime’s not-so-transparent plans. It offers the international community crucial insight into an otherwise non-transparent authoritarian regime that is increasingly at odds with the West and major powers in the Indo-Pacific. On the inaugural day of the annual parliamentary meeting of the National People’s Congress (NPC), Chinese Premier Li Keqiang announced that China has increased its defense budget for 2021 by 6.8 percent to 1.35 trillion yuan (USD 209 billion). Although this increase follows Beijing’s trend of single-digit year-on-year growth, it comes despite the econ
In many ways, China s quest to innovate and develop emerging technologies is not new. In the early 1980s, Jiang Zemin, the future president and then-Minister of the Electronics Ministry, stressed the need for China to catch up with its more advanced counterparts in information technology, which he deemed the strategic high ground in international competition. Major policies since then, such as the National Medium- and Long-Term Program for Science and Technology Development and China s Twelfth and Thirteenth Five-Year Plans have responded to this need to enhance China s technological capabilities. Calls in these plans for promoting indigenous innovation, leapfrogging in priority fields, and developing “strategic emerging industries, among other tasks, reflect some of the main goals outlined in the draft Fourteenth Five-Year Plan.
Monthly Review | March 2021 (Volume 72, Number 2) monthlyreview.org - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from monthlyreview.org Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.