China's top political advisory body takes measures to advance whole-process people's democracy

China's top political advisory body, the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), said that it has taken various measures, including enriching the forms of consultation and improving the consultation system, to advance whole-process people's democracy.

Liu Jieyi, the spokesperson for the second session of the 14th CPPCC National Committee, briefed the press on Sunday, one day ahead of the top political advisory body's annual session.

According to Liu, since March 2023, the CPPCC has held 94 consultations of various types with 5,087 participants and 1,602 speakers. "These consultations fully reflected the opinions and suggestions of the public," Liu said.

He stated that the CPPCC is an important form of practicing whole-process people's democracy, adding that the advisory body has been continuously improving its work to better deliver the voices of the people and ensure the will of the people is reflected in the CPPCC's political consultation, democratic oversight, and participation in the deliberation and administration of state affairs.

According to Liu, to enhance its professionalism and representativeness, the CPPCC has various types of consultation meetings, including plenary meetings, standing committee meetings, fortnightly consultative meetings, proposal-handling meetings, sectoral consultation, expert consultation and hot issue briefings.

Aside from convening meetings, the National Committee of the CPPCC has always organized and guided its members to go to the grassroots and conduct in-depth studies and research, Liu said. "In-depth research is the basis for high-quality consultations," he added.

As democratic supervision is also an important part of the CPPCC's work, Liu said that they have carried out special democratic supervision on key issues listed in China's 14th Five-Year Plan (2021-2025) for socioeconomic development and formed special supervision reports. 

He gave an example of sewage treatment in rural areas, saying the agriculture and rural affairs committee of the CPPCC carried out supervision on rural sewage treatment in the past years and formed a report. Their suggestions in the report were adopted by the Ministry of Ecology and Environment, which promoted the introduction of guiding opinions on the treatment of rural sewage by the ministry in January this year, according to Liu.