Thousands of delegates will arrive in Beijing this week for the annual China Two Sessions, one of the most important events on the country’s political calendar and a rare opportunity for global media to see Beijing’s top lawmakers up close.
The Two Sessions” are simultaneous meetings of the National People’s Congress (NPC) and the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), an advisory body.
Of the two meetings, the NPC, China’s legislature, is the more important. It has the power to amend the constitution, appoint people to political office, enact laws, and approve the budget. In 2018, it was the NPC that amended China’s constitution to remove term limits on the president, and in 2023 it was the NPC that subsequently elected Xi Jinping to that office for an unprecedented third term.
However, in modern China, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is more powerful than any state organ, and the NPC is, in fact, an approved parliament, which has never rejected any issue on its agenda. The real decision making is done by the PCC in separate meetings.
Still, the inauguration of the CPPCC on Wednesday and the NPC on Thursday will be full of pomp and circumstance. The NPC is the forum where the government publishes its annual work report, which outlines goals for the coming year, including the GDP growth target, which this year is expected to fall below 5% for the first time.
But this year’s session is also particularly important because it marks the official launch of the 15th five-year plan, the economic planning document that outlines Beijing’s priorities for 2026-2030.
“These are going to be two unusually busy sessions,” says Ruby Osman, senior policy adviser at the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change.
“The Two Sessions typically tell us what Beijing wants to do over the next 12 months. This year, they will also set out a much broader strategy for navigating a decisive period of geopolitical and technological change,” he says.
Osman added that there is likely to be a “mismatch” between the priorities of the government’s annual work report and the longer-term goals of the five-year plan, which “will make clear that Beijing sees innovative capacity – and the ability to protect itself from American pressures – as China’s real structural challenge.”
The 2026-2030 window is a key time frame for China’s strategic objectives. Xi wants the military to be capable of conducting a successful assault on Taiwan by 2027, and needs an economy that is self-sufficient and resilient in the face of potential sanctions to support that scenario. Taiwan is a self-governing island that Beijing claims as part of its territory, and it has not ruled out using force to “reunify” it with the CCP-ruled People’s Republic of China.
To that end, the 15th five-year plan is expected to focus on industrial self-reliance. China wants to increase its capacity to produce the most advanced semiconductors domestically, mitigating the force of US sanctions designed to slow China’s technological progress, particularly when it comes to artificial intelligence and military applications.
But the specter of recent high-level purges in the military will loom over any defense strategy. Xi recently put his top general, Zhang Youxia, under investigation for suspected corruption, a highly unusual move that came after years of growing turmoil in the world’s largest military. A recent paper published by the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C., found that more than 100 senior officers have been purged or potentially purged since 2022, a tally researchers have described as “staggering.”
On Thursday, the NPC governing body announced that it had revoked the membership of nine military delegates in the NPC, without providing reasons for the expulsions, according to a report published by the Xinhua news agency.
“Xi’s military purges will leave empty seats where senior officers once sat, a stark reminder that political loyalty is non-negotiable and that even top generals are expendable if the top leader is not liked,” says Neil Thomas, a China policy researcher at the Asia Society think tank.
Beyond the political intrigue, this year’s Two Sessions will reveal a series of economic indicators for the coming year. The most important is the annual GDP growth target, which is expected to be around 4.5% this year, the first time it has fallen below 5%. Analysts say this reflects a shift in Beijing’s priorities toward technological self-sufficiency, even if it comes at the expense of rapid growth.
This may suit what Beijing sees as an uncertain geopolitical future, particularly as it relates to the United States. But China’s internal problems, such as high levels of youth unemployment and an aging society, will not be cured by doubling down on skilled and specialized sectors, while other important parts of the economy, such as the real estate sector, continue to falter.
