Delegates, some dressed in traditional costume, take photos following the second plenary session of the National People's Congress at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, China, March 8, 2021. /Getty
Editor's note: William Jones is the Washington bureau chief for the Executive Intelligence Review and a non-resident fellow of the Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies, Renmin University of China. The article reflects the author's views and not necessarily those of CGTN.
The meeting of the China's legislative bodies, the National People's Congress and the consultative body, the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), should have garnered a lot more serious attention from the rest of the world this year.
As the world is just beginning to get a handle on the COVID-19 pandemic, China has really succeeded in overcoming the virus, and has done it with a positive growth rate for the year 2020. This means that China can hit the ground running economically while most of the world still must first introduce a control regime in order to prevent the spread of the pandemic.
For China, this is a particularly important year, over and above the victory over COVID-19. It is the year in which the poverty alleviation campaign can declare victory over poverty.
It is also the beginning of the 14th Five-Year Plan (2021-2025), which will determine the shape of this nation for decades to come. It includes the most ambitious program for creating an innovation-driven economy. And by placing scientific innovation at the heart of China's development, it will insure rapid economic growth for some time to come. There will be no "middle-income trap" for the People's Republic of China.
It is also the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Communist Party of China, the political governing entity which has raised the nation from an impoverished, and predominantly agricultural, nation to the second largest economy in the world, having become the center of the world manufacturing, and, in several sectors, the leading producer of high-technology products.
For this reason, the revival of China's economic growth can provide the impetus for the world economy, still in the throes of the pandemic. One of the key messages coming out of the meetings is that China will open up even more to foreign investment.
While it is placing more emphasis on the domestic economy as the real growth-driver, largely because of the uncertainties engendered by the negative campaign of propaganda being waged in the West against China, it will not close itself off, but rather open the door wider. And, judging from the increasing foreign direct investment in China, many foreign companies are doing just that – to their great benefit.
A delegate dressed in traditional costume walks with others as they leave following the second plenary session of the National People's Congress at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, China, March 8, 2021. /Getty
While the biased Western media depicts the Two Sessions as either a "political show" or a political "black box operation," it is in fact very public and very transparent and involve rather intensive, and at times heated, discussions among the participants.
In fact, much of the discussion and deliberation has been initiated long before the members arrive in Beijing for their 10-day "pow-wow." Indeed, with the proliferation of new communications in this COVID-19 era, members have even had many more online discussions of many of the issues that will be on the table during the sessions.
And while the viewing public generally only takes note of the formal press conferences where final results are reported, there are a multitude of opportunities for the press covering the sessions to effectively interview members, even now, with COVID-19 restrictions, with appropriate social distancing or over the internet.
Tens of thousands of proposals on a whole myriad of social, political and cultural issues, have been placed on the table by members of the NPC and the CPPCC. All of these are then circulated and discussed before decisions are made with regard to implementing, or rejecting them.
Far from a "rubber-stamp parliament," as some Western media would have it, the Two Sessions embraces an extensive discussion of almost all the major issues affecting society and the people literally by thousands of people.
Some takeaways from this year's Two Sessions. According to the Government Work Report, China is predicted to have a 6-percent growth rate next year and will create 11 million urban jobs, providing a ray of hope for countries who still have to reverse the negative downturn of the previous year.
China's success in poverty alleviation will be followed up by an ambitious program of rural revitalization in order to make sure that poverty never returns, a lesson with great appeal in Africa, Asia and Latin America, where countries are still struggling with extremely high rates of poverty.
And China will continue to exert its efforts in providing high-quality development in the Belt and Road Initiative, bringing more development opportunities to the world.
And the science program of the new Five-Year Plan is far more ambitious than any yet put forward, be it the Manhattan Project of the World War II years or the Apollo Project of the 1960s. With its implementation, the entire nation will become a veritable "hothouse" of innovation in which many of those problems now faced by mankind in the area of medicine, energy, food preservation, and longevity can readily be solved.
And this would not only be to the benefit of China. It would be to the benefit of all mankind.
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