𝙉𝙋𝘾 𝙊𝙗𝙨𝙚𝙧𝙫𝙚𝙧
@NPC_Observer
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⚖️ Independent coverage of China's National People's Congress and its Standing Committee | Called “invaluable” by @TheEconomist .
Joined November 2016
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NEW: A new issue of our newsletter just dropped!
It focuses on the new Degrees Law's remedies for degree-related disputes + the new Tariff Law & China's broader "law-based taxation" project.
Plus: a quick look at the AI lecture to lawmakers last month.
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#BREAKING
: The HK Chief Executive just published the new Hong Kong National Security Law in the Government Gazette. The Law will enter into force in Hong Kong as of 11 p.m. on June 30—the moment its full text is first made public.
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For those looking for some weekend reading, here are the full, text-searchable Chinese (72-page) and English (63-page) versions of Xi Jinping's 20th Party Congress report:
Chinese:
English:
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#BREAKING
: The Hong Kong National Security Law has been placed on the agenda of the ongoing NPC Standing Committee session. The legislators have discussed the bill in small groups this morning, which signals that the NPCSC will vote on (and pass) the bill tomorrow (Monday).
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Latest in Shanghai lockdown censorship: After people discovered a set of 2020 Q&As by the NPC that appear to declare hard isolation unlawful, WeChat is censoring reposts of the Q&As & the NPC itself has also deleted them from its website, though they're still widely avail online.
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#BREAKING
: China to postpone the annual session of the National People's Congress, which was scheduled to open on March 5. The NPC Standing Committee will also adopt a decision next week outlawing illegal trade in and the consumption of wild animals.
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We cover China's National People's Congress, not the National Political Committee of the Democratic Socialists of America.
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So folks are now asking/debating whether the NPC Standing Committee has the power to remove state councilors (who are considered state leaders 国家领导人) when the NPC isn't in session.
The answer is quite clear based on the NPC Organic Law as amended in 2021. Yes, it does.
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🚨𝘕𝘗𝘊 𝘖𝘣𝘴𝘦𝘳𝘷𝘦𝘳 is shutting down. Here is why👇🏻
To buy a complete copy of our content, please contact us here: . Offer expires at midnight.
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BREAKING: China’s national legislature on Tuesday removes Qin Gang as foreign minister and reappoints his predecessor and China’s current top diplomat, Wang Yi, as foreign minister. (Qin remains a state councilor.) It also appoints Pan Gongsheng new head of China’s central bank.
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Full draft of Hong Kong national security law will only be made public after it is passed by China’s top legislative body via
@SCMPNews
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Several HK media outlets have reported on the contents of the NPC's forthcoming decision to overhauling Hong Kong's electoral system. What do we know so far? A thread 🧵:
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BREAKING: On Tuesday, China’s top legislature, the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress, removed Li Shangfu as defense minister and state councilor, without appointing a replacement. It also removed Qin Gang from his state councilor position.
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#BREAKING
: China's national legislature on Fri approved the country's first comprehensive national data privacy legislation, the Personal Information Protection Law, effective Nov. 1, 2021. Full text expected by end of day. Bookmark this page for updates:
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BREAKING: China's top legislature, the National People's Congress, has reelected Xi Jinping as PRC president for a third five-year term. The vote was unanimous (2952-0).
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BREAKING: China’s national legislature on Saturday granted the central government broad authority to carry out pilots of a property tax 房地产税 in selected regions for five years. The government may decide when and where to start the pilots. More to come.
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Breaking: The NPCSC Legislative Affairs Comm'n has decided that local regs (like Inner Mongolia's) banning ethnic schools from teaching in Mandarin w/o gov approval are UNCONSTITUTIONAL b/c they violate the const'l provision setting forth the state policy of promoting Mandarin.
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BREAKING: In a break with past practice, Chinese Premier Li Qiang will NOT meet the press after the 2024 session of the National People's Congress closes on March 11, or at any of the 3 remaining sessions of the current NPC.
#NPC2024
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A reminder for those who believe "minority languages are protected in China & therefore offered special status": A top legislative body ruled in 2020—& then reiterated in 2021 & 2022—that teaching non-Mandarin classes in minority languages violates both PRC laws & Constitution.
After decades of only allowing Mandarin Chinese to be taught, Taiwan has a handful of small, fully-Austronesian language schools.
@HugoPeng1
and I spent a day at one of them (a palate cleanser to report after years reporting on the reverse in China)
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BREAKING: China’s national legislature will meet for an emergency session tomorrow (Tue), the legislative leadership decided today. It will consider a draft Criminal Law amendment (not expected to pass) and personnel matters (could concern the foreign minister or PBoC governor).
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‼️ A newly released report by the NPCSC Delegate Credentials Committee confirms/discloses that the 9 PLA officials listed in the 🧵 below had been removed as National People's Congress delegates for "suspected serious violations of law and discipline"—Party-speak for corruption.
🧵 on PLA personnel removals announced at 7th session of the 14th NPC (thanks to
@NPC_Observer
for flagging).
The NPC, in one fell swoop, quietly removed several senior leaders of the PLA Rocket Force (PLARF) and CMC Equipment Development Department (EDD). Here they are, with…
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The number of DSA members who have liked, retweeted, or followed us after seeing the above tweet is very disturbing.
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The NPCSC's non-regularly scheduled (or ad hoc / special) sessions are uncommon but not rare—there's been 9 (out of 75) since 2013. But this one might be the first (based on publicly available info) true *emergency* session—scheduled just a day earlier—in at least a decade.
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NEW POST – 2020 NPC Session: NPC’s Imminent Decision on National Security in Hong Kong Explained
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BREAKING: According to the finalized agenda just released by Xinhua, the National People’s Congress won’t take any personnel actions at this year’s session.
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I wrote for
@Diplomat_APAC
about the NPC's emerging practice of hiding certain bills until shortly before or, worse, until after their adoption and the potential codification of this secretive practice. —CW
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#BREAKING
: The NPC Standing Committee will meet *again* later this month, from June 28 to 30. As with the session that just ended on Sat, the Hong Kong national security law isn't on the tentative agenda, but still could be added at the last minute—again.
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3 years ago today I started the NPC Observer, promising "to promptly and accurately relay news from the NPC and the NPCSC to our readers and to help them better understand the two institutions." Hopefully in the past 3 years my team and I have mostly lived up to that promise.
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In shocking news today, the NPC Standing Comm. just announced a session from Aug. 8–11, instead of the usual time AT THE END of Aug. One-off change? Temp. pandemic change? Permanent adjustment to its schedule? Or another month with two shorter sessions like June? We don't know.
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Here is a simplified Chinese version: . As far as we know, no English version is currently available.
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#BREAKING
:
@XHNews
just released a summary of the contents of the new Hong Kong electoral reform decision. Here's a quick thread. Again, we are still waiting for the full text of the Decision before publishing an explainer.
#BREAKING
: The National People's Congress just approved a Decision on Improving the Electoral System of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, with 2895 votes in favor and 1 abstention.
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JUST IN: China's top legislature announced the dismissals of 9 high-ranking military officials as delegates to the National People's Congress, including 1 from the Joint Staff Dept, 2 from the Equipment Dev. Dept, 1 from the Navy, 1 from the Air Force & 4 from the Rocket Force.
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Our English translation of China's new Foreign Investment Law 外商投资法 is now available on
@ChinaLawTransl8
:
Our summary is forthcoming.
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#BREAKING
: China's National People's Congress has released full text of the newly adopted Anti–Foreign Sanctions Law [反外国制裁法]:
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NEW POST – Translation: Communist Party's Proposals for Amending the P.R.C. Constitution (2018)
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#2018NPC
NEW POST: It took us some time, but it is finally here: Our own color-coded summary of the 2018 State Council reorganization plan. PDF available for download. (See blog post for rest of the pages)
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Many people overnight have discovered this set of Q&As put out by the NPC Standing Committee in *Mar 2020*, which seem to say that "hard isolation" 硬隔离 measures (which Shanghai uses to mean fencing off residential compounds/buildings) are unlawful: .
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Here's a quick look at the Law's main provisions:
1. It targets the “discriminatory restrictive measures” imposed by foreign countries on PRC persons (= individuals + entities) that violate int'l law or basic principles of int'l relations & interfere in PRC domestic affairs
#BREAKING
: China's National People's Congress has released full text of the newly adopted Anti–Foreign Sanctions Law [反外国制裁法]:
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#BREAKING
: The NPC Standing Committee will meet from June 18 to 20, the Council of Chairpersons decided on Tue. The Hong Kong national security law isn't on the tentative agenda, at least according to the readout of the Council's meeting. But that's not end of the story.
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Today is the last day of
#NPC2020
. The NPC is expect to approve the draft Hong Kong National Security Decision ~3pm local time. The final text is expected to be released tonight.
Several reminders:
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#BREAKING
: The National People’s Congress’s 2020 annual session will start on May 22, its Standing Comittee decided on Wednesday morning.
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So there have been reports of China "proposing" new legislation to "protect" / "surveil" overseas Chinese, first from Chinese state media and then from others.
Who exactly did what? A quick thread:
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Ask and ye shall receive: we have prepared a bilingual list of China's current 274 national laws, along with the dates each law was adopted and most recently updated. This is still a beta version, and we expect to add more information in the coming weeks.
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🚨
#NPC2024
: Full text of Li Qiang's government work report:
- Chinese:
- English:
A reminder that the report isn't final and subject to (minor) changes.
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NPCSC Releases Some Details of the Draft Hong Kong National Security Law, But Withholds Information on Criminal Provisions
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NEW: We just translated the NPC Standing Committee's decision authorizing the State Council to conduct property tax pilots. The translation will also be available in an upcoming blogpost.
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BREAKING: Per Chinese media reports, an agency under China's top legislature concluded that local legislation mandating parentage testing for persons suspected of having unauthorized births violates constitutional protections for personal dignity, marriage, families & children.
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Very honored that
@TheEconomist
called us "invaluable" in an article in its print edition!
Becoming more Chinese – Assimilation of Chinese minorities is not just a Uyghur thing
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JUST IN: The National People's Congress has confirmed (re)appointments to the following 26 cabinet positions. The incumbent director of China's National Health Commission has received the most no votes (21) & abstentions (8), likely because of the now-abandoned zero-Covid policy.
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ANNOUNCEMENT: Our English translation of the Constitution of the People's Republic of China as amended in 2018 will from now on be *exclusively* available on
@ChinaLawTransl8
: . Translation of the 2018 amendment is still available on our blog.
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NEW: China is amending its Legislation Law (立法法), which governs various law/rule-making bodies' authority and procedure & sets forth a legislative hierarchy. We just posted a bilingual comparison chart for the draft amendments: Analysis to come.
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BREAKING: By a vote of 2936-3, with 8 delegates abstaining, China's National People's Congress has confirmed Li Qiang as the country's next Premier.
↓ President Xi Jinping signing the presidential order that formalizes the appointment.
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As we have now seen the text of the draft decision on HK's national security legislation (), here's another QUICK THREAD:
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#BREAKING
: NPCSC Leg. Affairs Comm'n just issued a statement repudiating HK High Court's ruling striking down the mask ban, saying the ruling "was contrary to the Basic Law & relevant NPCSC decision." Signals that NPCSC might interpret the Basic Law.
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2,977 delegates have been elected to China's national legislature, the National People's Congress, for a five-year term beginning next month. Surprising no one, the delegates are predominantly men of the majority Han ethnic group.
Our quick analysis:
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The current headline of the NPC's website is missing a character. See if you can spot it. Wonder how long it would take them to notice it.
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We have translated the National People's Congress's decision to overhaul Hong Kong's electoral system, now available on
@ChinaLawTransl8
:
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Just In: The National People's Congress today launched an official database of Chinese law [国家法律法规数据库]: The database currently includes only the Constitution, statutes, administrative regulations, judicial interpretations & local regulations.
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NEW POST — NPC Observer Exclusive: Demographics of the 13th NPC
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Here is the cover of the ballot for the constitutional amendment vote and the "special pen" everyone was so obsessed about. Source:
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#BREAKING
: The National People's Congress just approved a Decision on Improving the Electoral System of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, with 2895 votes in favor and 1 abstention.
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hilarious that you think we have friends. also SUPER rude for suggesting Xinhua's readouts of NPCSC meetings aren't "interesting." have you even TRIED spending hours decoding when/which character 等 in the readouts would signify undisclosed bills?*
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At a law professor's request, China's national legislature reviewed and rejected local legislation that denies single women access to maternity benefits.
We wrote about the legal challenge here:
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First time since 1981 "family planning" doesn't appear in the name of any State Council department.
Family Planning 计划生育委员会 as a PRC state institution started in 1981 and phased out today.
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Great overview of the roles played by the NPC delegates’ “suggestions,” how they are handled by the responding gov’t bodies & where to find them.
"Suggestions" and "Proposals" from Two Sessions by
@ZichenWanghere
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According to an NPC Standing Committee official, the NPCSC will add revisions to the Wild Animals Protection Law [野生动物保护法] to its annual legislative plan for 2020. He hinted that the Law would be amended so that it covers wild animals beyond rare or endangered ones. 1/2
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Thread: China's national legislature, the NPC Standing Committee, concluded a session on Friday and approved nine legislative bills. We will update this thread as
@XHNews
sends out new information on the new laws.
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The HK National Security Law is only the second brand-new law the NPCSC has passed without releasing any draft for public comments since public consultations became a regular practice in 2008. The other time was in 2012, when, by law, public consultation was still the exception.
Midnight.
@NPC_Observer
, can you think of any other time they hid the ball like this with other legislation?
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Latest on the Hong Kong National Security Law: The NPC Standing Committee most certainly will *not* pass the Law tomorrow (Saturday). The Council of Chairpersons met on Friday and approved the voting versions of several bills, which didn't include the NSL.
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Us waiting for the NPC leadership to leave Beidaihe and announce this month’s legislative agenda like:
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Anyone who argues that the 2021 NPC Organic Law amendment violates the PRC Constitution must contend with the fact that (1) the NPC itself approved the amendment; and (2) the NPCSC has the constitutional authority to exercise "any other function & power" delegated by the NPC.
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NEW: We have posted a bilingual comparison chart for the newly amended Legislation Law [立法法], effective Mar. 15:
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NEW POST — Translation: 2018 Amendment to the P.R.C. Constitution. (Spoiler Alert: It is *almost* identical to the Communist Party's proposals.)
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ATTENTION READERS: The final version of our critically acclaimed, annotated, bilingual, sortable, and color-coded five-year Legislative Plan of the 12th NPCSC is now available on our new Wikisource page: PDF or Word format currently not available.
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Info from 1st
#2018NPC
press conference:
1. Session runs 3/5 AM–3/20 AM
2. Const. amdt will be voted on 3/11 AM (followed by sp. press conference);
3. Personnel votes on 3/17–19
4. Will only review plan to reorganize State Council
5. Premier (w/ vice premiers) presser on 3/20 AM
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🚨 We updated the files linked below with a Chinese version that has all 72 pages and an English version with a much smaller file size 🚨
Thanks to
@YewLunTian
for sharing the new files with us!
For those looking for some weekend reading, here are the full, text-searchable Chinese (72-page) and English (63-page) versions of Xi Jinping's 20th Party Congress report:
Chinese:
English:
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NEW FEATURE: Sometimes we make charts comparing different versions of a bill or a law for our own use. Starting 2022, we will make these charts freely available on our site. Just look for your least favorite Greek letter (delta Δ) on bill pages! From the 1st such chart uploaded:
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It sure looks like that some HK-related item would show up on the upcoming NPC's agenda at the last minute. Link to Xinhua's interview w/ Prof. Han:
Top advisers to Beijing ramp up calls for overhaul of Hong Kong’s political system
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NEW POST – NPC Launches Official Chinese Law Database: A Guide & Review
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Welcome to April!
ICYMI: We are not going anywhere and certainly won't be covering the Chinese People's Polit—or whatever it's called.
The NPC Standing Committee is meeting later this month, and several important bills could potentially be on the agenda:
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Let's just say, when we launched the blog in October 2016, we certainly did not expect to deal with the Hong Kong Basic Law this many times in the next three-and-a-half years . . . *sigh*
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The NPC Standing Committee approved 7 bills on Saturday. Links to the full texts will be posted in this thread as they are released over the weekend. Our post-session recap will be forthcoming.
THREAD:
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NEW: China will adopt a Foreign State Immunity Law on Friday, subjecting foreign states to civil suits in China based on non-governmental acts. The same day, it'll also adopt a bill to reform civil procedure rules for foreign-related litigation.
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If you are one of the few people who are interested in the amendments to the NPC's two governing laws being considered at
#NPC2021
, we have an explainer for you:
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NEW: The new State Council just announced its organizational structure, and we have accordingly updated our bilingual organizational chart of the State Council:
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GUEST POST by
@MoritzRudolf
on China's new Foreign Relations Law, which took effect over the weekend.
"The Law underlines two important trends: China’s increasing global outreach and its willingness to embed this global outreach within a legal framework."
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#BREAKING
: The Communist Party will hold the Fourth Plenum of the 19th Central Committee in October, studying issues on “upholding & improving the socialist system with Chinese characteristics & advancing the modernization of the system & capacity for governance.”
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Beijing Qianqian Law Firm, which specializes in women's rights advocacy, launched a WeChat campaign Thursday evening, asking the public to comment on the draft revisions to the Women's Rights and Interests Protection Law (comments due 1/22).
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A clarification on the timing of the bill's passage: Unless we see the daily schedule of the ongoing session, the bill could pass either Monday or Tuesday.
@alvinllum
The NPCSC's prior practice (from 2005) is to pass the national law first and add it to Annex III the next day. We're thus expecting two separate votes, one on Mon, and another on Tue. But of course, it may do things differently this time. We'd need the daily schedule to confirm.
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