On the table this year is an “ethnic unity” law, which human rights monitors warn will be used to further entrench repression of minority groups.
It seeks to elevate the importance of Mandarin at the expense of other minority languages, even as officials in Tibet, Xinjiang and Inner Mongolia have already significantly reduced education in local languages.
It also encourages intermarriage between the Han Chinese majority and ethnic minorities, and bans any acts seen as damaging to “ethnic unity”. According to the draft legislation, parents and guardians are required to “educate and guide minors to love the Chinese Communist Party”.
The congress is also set to approve the Ecological and Environmental Code which covers pollution control, ecological protection and low-carbon development, among other aspects.
The main event at the NPC is the Government Work Report delivered by the premier, which reviews the previous year’s performance and sets the policy agenda and economic targets for the year ahead.
The report will contain this year’s economic growth target. In the last few years the target has been “around 5%”. Anything lower than this signals a greater push for slower but better-quality growth in China.
This year’s NPC is also significant because delegates will approve the next Five Year Plan, the blueprint that China will follow between 2026 and 2030.
This document will give the world a better idea of Beijing’s longer-term economic goals, especially when it comes to the high-tech and renewable energy sectors, and its plans to boost sluggish domestic consumption.
China watchers will be looking out for empty seats at the congress. Delegates’ absence from a major political gathering like this is sometimes a signal that they are in trouble.
Xi has already removed many officers in the upper levels of the military in recent months, including nine who lost their NPC delegate status last week and three who lost their CPPCC delegate status this week.
Officials in many other sectors have “disappeared” too, but the People’s Liberation Army has seen the most removals and resignations across all NPC delegations this term.