Xi Jinping to cement hold on power at China’s National People’s Congress

The 2900 delegates attending the annual parliamentary session in Beijing will vote for Xi Jinping to remain President indefinitely.

President Xi Jinping attends the opening of the first session of the 13th Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference at The Great Hall of People. Picture: Getty Images

The eyes of the world will be on Xi Jinping today as he enters China’s annual parliamentary session in Beijing and waits for the 2900 ­delegates to vote for him to remain President indefinitely.

In a speech setting the scene for this historic meeting of the National People’s Congress, released over the weekend, Mr Xi said such reform of the Communist Party and state institutions “will not reach a point in which it is finished”. Changes were required, he said, to implement the spirit of October’s 19th five-yearly congress of the party — whose decisions and plans would now be formalised.

Premier Li Keqiang, the head of the government, will today deliver the annual “work report”, which will detail core programs and ­targets in a three-hour state-of-the-nation address.

A new ministry will be named, and other key appointments will be announced, including a new central bank governor to replace the respected Zhou Xiaochuan, who held the job for 15 years.

This year the changes are ­expected to go beyond fresh names, and to include an institutional shake-up that will streamline the ministries from 25 to 19.

The Agriculture Ministry is tipped to absorb the Irrigation and Forestry ministries and the Health Ministry is expected to absorb the Population Planning Commission. The Energy Supervision Commission is to be merged with the Environmental Protection Ministry, and the Land Resource and Construction ministries will be merged, along with the Technology and Education ministries.

More ambitiously, according to Hong Kong’s Ming Pao newspaper, the Taiwan Affairs Office is set to merge with the Hong Kong and Macau Office, which will emphasise Beijing’s desire to restrict Taiwan to a purely domestic setting.

Ming Pao also tipped the Chinese Academies of Social Science and of Science to merge, and — further blurring the lines between party and state — the communist flagship newspaper People’s Daily is to merge with the government news agency Xinhua, and the State Council’s Information Office will combine with the party’s propaganda department.

ANZ Research said it expected Liu He, Mr Xi’s chief economic ­adviser, to “assume a formal role in the State Council or cabinet”. He is being tipped to become governor of the People’s Bank of China.

On a mission to Washington last week, Mr Liu failed to dissuade US President Donald Trump from heralding the first blows in a long-anticipated trade war by imposing 25 per cent steel and 10 per cent aluminium tariffs, or to persuade Mr Trump to return to the ­Comprehensive Economic Dialogue, the top-level meetings that took place annually.

The website Inside US Trade said the White House rejected the latter request despite China offering a liberalisation of the financial services market and a commitment to large purchases of US products.

The ANZ report claimed “financial market reforms featuring deleveraging and the opening up of markets to foreign investors” would top the NPC policy agenda.

Xinhua confirmed in previewing the 10-day NPC session — after which major decisions are made by its standing committee — that “Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era” would be written into China’s constitution, joining Mao Zedong Thought.

The 1982 constitution was last amended in 2004, and this week’s changes will include the abolition of a limit of two five-year terms for the president and vice-president.

It is widely expected that Mr Xi’s closest political ally Wang Qishan — whose leadership of the party’s Central Commission for Discipline Inspection over the past five years undermined all the President’s rivals — will be named vice-president.

Mr Xi was reluctant to defy the party’s age-limit convention of 68 at its October congress and keep Mr Wang, 69, on the Politburo Standing Committee — but there is no such limit for the presidency or vice-presidency. Mr Xi is 64.

Xinhua also stressed the significance of the launch of a new National Supervisory Commission. It has widespread investigative and detention powers above and beyond those of the courts, with branches already being established down to county level, to supervise all government officials, however menial, ensuring their freedom from corruption and their loyalty to the central leadership.

“With a complete supervisory network over all state functionaries under the party’s leadership, China can create a new anti-­corruption model,” Xinhua said.

Heralding a further jump in military spending, it added: “China has started national defence and military reform in an effort to have a stronger military to better safeguard peace.”

Mr Xi, the chairman of the ­central military commission, ­delivered a speech on Friday ­calling for “deeper military-civilian integration in the new era”. The People’s Liberation Army ­remains strictly the party’s army, although it is funded by the state.

Wang Guoqing, spokesman for the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, provided an early taste of the confident tone of the event when he said of China’s new South China Sea military bases on artificial ­islands: “Building amenities on our land, including necessary defence facilities, is absolutely normal.”

He also rebutted criticism — including from Australia, although he did not name its source — that China sought to “infiltrate” Western countries: “Regretfully we see that certain people in the West, their bodies are in the 21st century, but their brains are still stuck in the Cold War era.”