The Two Sessions, the annual meetings of the National People's Congress and the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, is generally the most important political event of the year. Almost every year, people say that this year is the most important, but this year the claim has more truth. There are significant initiatives in this Two Sessions, among which the establishment of the National Supervisory Commission, a new powerful high state organ, is most obvious. How will this body work? Robert Lawrence Kuhn discussed the establishment of National Supervisory Commission with Professor Wang Huiyao, Counsellor of the State Council of the People’s Republic of China and member of the Beijing CPPCC.

“I think that China is trying to learn this anti-corruption system from good, well-established system. For example, in Hong Kong, there is a separate body for anti-corruption system. The Party has its Central Commission for Discipline Commission, but there has been criticism of this system in the past because it is not in norms with world practice. So now the country has a supervision commission that goes after all the government officials and all the public servants (irrespective of party affiliation). If anyone who is a public servant violates the law (or does things wrong), then there is an organization that can pursue you. So I think this will have a great impact in China because, on one hand, China has a market system, and on the other hand, the government is criticized for getting too tight. There has been a lot of corruption; now we have a third party standing on the side watching over. And so we will try to innovate a new system that will separate the government and the market forces so that anything wrong can be looked after by this supervising committee. People have a lot of expectations, and the supervisory committee will need some experimentation to optimize it, how to structure it, how to reform it. They pilots running in Beijing and in Zhejiang and Shanxi provinces. I hope that the process is going to be really strengthened and carried out more scientifically. We learn interesting and useful experiences from other countries. That will help really make it work.”