"This is the second year of my first term serving as a CPPCC member," Wang Xiaochuan told CGTN during an interview.

Wang is the chief executive officer of Beijing Sougou Technology Development, a company best known for the development of a range of popular Sogou-branded products, including a search engine, Chinese character input tool and web browser. At this time of year, he is constantly traveling back and forth between his company and the Two Sessions' meeting station. 

With four proposals this year, Wang is trying to increase the amount of AI technology in people's daily lives, especially in health care, and he's also calling on the government to widen access to public data in order to help AI develop in China.

Last year, one of his proposals was for tax cuts to drive innovation and technology development. Not only did it get promoted as a "key proposal," but it has since been partially adopted and converted into policy. 

Even though the second session of the 13th National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), the country's top political advisory body, is now in session, it's not easy to explain how the political body functions and why it‘s organized the way it is. How exactly does each CPPCC member make a proposal and how do their proposals get approved? I'm following Wang to find out.

A day with a CPPCC member

At 8 o'clock in the morning, I met Wang at the hotel where all the CPPCC members are stationed during the Two Sessions and followed him to the group discussion.

It started with CPPCC members sharing their own thoughts on the government report, which was delivered by Premier Li Keqiang at the NPC opening. This was followed by discussions on each member's specific proposals.  

The idea is that all the members should monitor their own field and areas of interest, and spend their spare time doing research before coming up with suggestions for policy changes. 

"One of my proposals for this year is to call on the government to open access to public data, including in the fields of transportation and meteorology," said Wang.

As the CPPCC members come from different areas (including the Hong Kong and Macao Special Administrative Regions) and all sorts of professions, political leanings and walks of life, they naturally have different perspectives, thus, the debates in the group discussions are usually quite lively and loud. 

You see, CPPCC members are not elected by popular vote, but in fact, selected based on guidelines relating to diversity and nomination processes.

For more, please check out my Vlog – "One day spent with a CPPCC member."