China’s Li Qiang (李強) is to become the first premier in three decades to not hold a press briefing at the annual parliamentary meetings, removing a rare platform for investors to learn more about the nation’s policy direction as Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) consolidates control over the world’s second-largest economy.
The nation’s No. 2 official would not take questions at the close of the National People’s Congress (NPC) for the rest of its five-year term apart from in “special circumstances,” official spokesperson Lou Qinjian (婁勤儉) said yesterday at a briefing in Beijing. This cohort of lawmakers are to gather each year until 2027.
The annual press conference by the sitting premier has been in place since at least 1993. Scrapping one of the few events in China’s political calendar where a top leader can interact with the public comes at a moment when the Chinese Communist Party is facing scrutiny over restricting access to information.
Photo: EPA-EFE
China stopped releasing some key economic data for parts of last year, such as the then-soaring youth unemployment rate, while Xi has mysteriously delayed a twice-a-decade meeting on long-term reforms, expected last autumn.
The growing opacity comes as Beijing tries to boost confidence in an economy grappling with a multiyear real-estate crisis and facing headwinds from geopolitical tensions with the US. Foreign direct investment slumped to a 30-year low last year, while mainland Chinese and Hong Kong stocks lost US$7 trillion during a market meltdown, despite official pledges to woo foreign capital.
“This is a big loss, and yet another sign the government slowly becoming ever-more opaque, both to outsiders and even those within the system,” said Christopher Beddor, deputy China research director at Gavekal Dragonomics.
Canceling the yearly briefing removes a key vehicle for the government to convey its plans in informal language and to respond to criticisms, he added.
The NPC itself had previously touted the press briefing as “one of the important windows for observing China’s openness and transparency” in a post published on its WeChat account in 2018.
Discussion of the premier’s media briefing was tightly controlled on Chinese microblogging platform Weibo yesterday afternoon, with searches only returning posts from government-linked accounts. Users shared an article celebrating past premiers’ briefings, in an apparent bid to skirt censors.
Li is still to deliver the government’s annual work report at the parliament’s opening today, where he is expected to repeat last year’s growth target of about 5 percent. While that number is the most important policy message of this month’s huddle of thousands of delegates from across the nation, the press briefing gave past premiers a rare chance to establish a personal rapport with the public.
Former premier Li Keqiang (李克強) set off a nationwide debate on poverty alleviation after complaining at the 2020 briefing that two-fifths of China’s population’s earned “not even enough to rent a room in a medium-sized Chinese city.”
Those type of comments afforded him a reputation as the “people’s premier” and his passing in October triggered an outpouring of nostalgia and grief.
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