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The meetings were due to be held in early March. Photo: Xinhua

China postpones year’s biggest political gathering amid coronavirus outbreak

  • March’s ‘two sessions’ set to be delayed amid the Covid-19 epidemic, which has killed more than 1,700 people
  • Government spokesman tells Xinhua news agency that delay will allow government officials to focus on fighting the outbreak

China’s annual parliamentary meeting, which was scheduled for early March, will almost certainly be postponed because of the Covid-19 outbreak.

The state news agency Xinhua reported that the standing committee of the National People’s Congress (NPC) would discuss the delay later this month – effectively indicating that it would be put back.

Zang Tiewei, a spokesman for the NPC legislative affairs commission, told Xinhua that deferring the March meeting would allow government officials to concentrate on controlling the outbreak, which has killed more than 1,700 people.

Zang said one third of the national legislators were also local government officials who are currently working to stop the disease spreading. No new date for the meeting has been announced.

Xinhua also reported that the leaders of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) had discussed delaying the full meeting in March and one for senior political advisers at the end of this month.

A mainland source who is familiar with the preparations said the risks of going ahead with the annual sessions of the NPC and CPPCC – commonly known as the “two sessions” – were too high.

“The health risk of convening the annual sessions early next month would be too high when the coronavirus outbreak has not yet been effectively contained,” the source said.

“The risk of cross infections would be very high for nearly 8,000 people … as well as staff responsible for administering the meetings, under the same roof of the Great Hall of the People,” the source said.

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The CPPCC was originally scheduled to open on March 3, while the NPC was scheduled to start on March 5. Both events last for about 10 days.

News that the “two sessions” were almost certain to be postponed coincided with the announcement that a team of medical experts from the World Health Organisation, including specialists from the US, will visit Beijing and the Chinese provinces of Guangdong and Sichuan from Monday to assess China’s efforts to contain the outbreak.

But the team will not visit Hubei, the province at the epicentre of the outbreak, raising concerns about the transparency of the visit.

The WHO has so far praised China’s efforts, saying they made a significant contribution in preventing the disease from spreading to other countries.

The death toll from Covid-19 had risen to 1,770 on mainland China as of Sunday, infecting 70,548 people, including more than 1,700 medical workers.

So far, there have been about 700 cases of infection outside of China.

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While the two sessions have the image of being a “rubber-stamp” affair, they are among the most important political events in China, where the NPC, the country’s parliament, approves the annual government work report as well as the annual budget.

Major new pieces of legislation also need to be approved.

During the sessions, all state leaders, including President Xi Jinping and Premier Li Keqiang, have a schedule packed with meetings and group discussions.

Government ministers and their advisers also shed some light on China’s opaque bureaucracy with daily press conferences and the premier will wrap up proceedings with an annual press conference.

Zhu Lijia, a professor with the Chinese Academy of Governance, the top academy of the central government, said the delay would have a limited impact on policies since all major decisions are decided by the Communist Party.

“This is a country led by the party, so the key policies have mostly been decided by the party,” he said.

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“It’s only appropriate to hold it when the entire country, including Hubei province, has brought the virus outbreak under control.”

There are 2,980 deputies in the NPC while the CPPCC has 2,158 representatives, who will come from across the country, including more than a hundred delegates from Hubei.

Wu Junfei, deputy director of the Tianda Institute, a think tank in Hong Kong, said the postponement would signal Beijing’s determination to tackle the outbreak, adding that it would be “much better internally and internationally” to wait until the World Health Organisation determined that the outbreak was no longer an international public health emergency.

Wang Jiangyu, director of the centre for Chinese and comparative law at City University in Hong Kong, said the “two sessions” was mainly an occasion to formalise the political leadership’s agenda.

“There is no major urgent political agenda for now, pushing [it] back for a month or two will have no material impact. Everything has to give way to fighting the epidemic.”

A delay in approving the national budget is hardly a problem either, as China has a long tradition of spending money first and confirming the budget later, said Gu Su, a political scientist with Nanjing University.

“It’s not like in the US where the government will need to close if the budget is not passed by congress,” he said. “Each year the central government is indeed spending money in the first two months before the budget is approved in March. So this year’s delay won’t be an issue.”

But Gu pointed out that since state leaders must be present at the gatherings, organisers will need to find a gap in their diaries or reschedule other planned events.

Japan and China agreed on Saturday to continue preparations for Xi’s state visit in April, despite speculation that the trip may be postponed amid the Covid-19 outbreak. Xi is also expected to host the China-European Union summit in Beijing in May.

Tam Yiu-chung, Hong Kong’s only representative on the NPC standing committee, said it was a reasonable decision to postpone the events.

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“Top officials from many provinces and cities are working hard to fight the disease,” he said. “They would be put under quarantine if they came to Beijing. That would seriously affect the work to contain the outbreak.”

Tam said the general office of the NPC standing committee had told him there was no need to travel to Beijing for a February 24 meeting.

“Instead, I will take part in discussions via e-conference,” he said.

Anthony Wu Ting-yuk, a member of the CPPCC standing committee, said the decision reflected the central government’s concern and it had “put people’s health, rather than politics, first”.

Wu added that the postponement would not have a serious impact on decision-making.

This month’s NPC standing committee meeting will also consider a motion banning the wildlife trade and eradicating the habit of eating wildlife.

The Politburo Standing Committee has said earlier this month that resolute efforts should be made to crack down on the trade, which researchers have blamed for playing a key role in transmitting the virus that causes the disease to humans.

On Friday President Xi Jinping also called for stronger legislation to protect wildlife.

Additional reporting by William Zheng and Gary Cheung

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This article appeared in the South China Morning Post print edition as: move to delay ‘two sessions’
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