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Opinion

China's National People's Congress meeting needs substance, not slogans

Gloating over pandemic containment will not please business or public

| China
The closing session of last year's NPC, pictured in March 2019: the CCP's priorities do not necessarily overlap with those of China.   © Reuters

Minxin Pei is professor of government at Claremont McKenna College and a nonresident senior fellow of the German Marshall Fund of the United States.

The annual sessions of the Chinese National People's Congress and the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, the so-called lianghui, are elaborately staged but substantively light political rituals. The NPC delegates attending the annual session rubber-stamp the policies and legislative proposals of the ruling Chinese Communist Party without much debate.

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