China's National People's Congress gets under way on Thursday and the annual talking shop is set to approve a 10 per cent increase in the defence budget, outpacing the slowing economy as the country ramps up investment in aircraft carriers, submarines and stealth aircraft.
The congress is a reminder that China is still a communist country, despite its capitalist trappings these days, and the rhetoric at the event is often very Marxist-Leninist in tone.
Red flags will fly all over the capital as delegates arrive in the Great Hall of the People on Tiananmen Square.
The parliament is largely a symbolic affair as most of the laws under discussion have been decided by the top leaders of the ruling Communist Party, and the bills are generally passed to resounding applause and nearly 100 per cent approval, but the congress does give insights into what issues the Chinese government considers important.
Fu Ying, a spokeswoman for the annual session, said that the 10 per cent defence budget increase was down from 12.2 per cent last year and was the lowest such rise in five years.
As a big country, China needed an army that could safeguard its national security and people and the capital support was needed to modernise the country’s national defence and its army, Ms Fu said. “To tell the truth, there is still a gap between China’s armed forces and foreign counterparts in terms of overall military equipment. We still need more time.”
The congess comes after a meeting of the advisory body, the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC).
As well as defence, slower economic growth, a new counterterrorism law and reform of state-owned enterprises are likely to top the agenda at this year’s cngress.
Another topic will be the fight against corruption. In the past two years, 39 members of China’s national legislature were stripped of their lawmaker status.
“An overwhelming majority of the national lawmakers are doing well,” Ms Fu said. “A people’s congress deputy should neither stand idle while occupying the elected position nor violate laws and disciplines.”
More than 200 wealthy Chinese are delegates to the "liang hui", as the people's congress and the CPPCC are called, up from 155 last year, and their ranks include 36 billionaires, including Li Hejun, who was recently ranked the country's richest man by the Shanghai-based rich list, Hurun.
Others include China's third-richest man, Zong Qinghou, chief executive of beverage firm Hangzhou Wahaha, Tencent's Pony Ma, and Lei Jun, founder of the Xiaomi technology group, who is 10th richest.
Pollution is likely to feature high on the agenda at the meeting. In the run-up, a documentary about China’s pollution woes, made by a former news anchor from state broadcaster China Central Television, notched up more than 200 million clicks online and prompted a major bout of soul-searching about the long-term effects of pollution.
The backdrop to the meeting will be flagging economic growth, which last year fell to a 24-year low of 7.4 per cent. Chinese leaders are trying to get the populace used to the idea that lower growth is the “new normal”.
