Chinese legislature’s meetings return, but the limited openness they once had is gone

BEIJING (AP) — This year, China’s national legislature resumed its annual in-person meetings without many of the restrictions that had been imposed since the pandemic. No more bubbles, multiple COVID-19 tests or social distancing.

Officials say China is back to business, but in practice, the meetings have become even more tightly scripted to convey Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s message, leaving little room for the spontaneity and open engagement the sessions once offered before COVID-19.

The Two Sessions, as the meetings are called, lasted just one week — half their length before the pandemic. Delegates no longer mingle with journalists in open-door sessions as they used to just a few years ago. Reporters were in some instances physically barred from approaching officials.

And this year, breaking with three decades of tradition, officials said they would no longer be hosting the premier’s news conference, removing a once-a-year opportunity for journalists to ask questions to a top Chinese leader.

The changes reflect just a sliver of China’s transformation under Xi, its most powerful leader in decades. Xi has removed term limits, sidelined rivals and appointed a crew of loyalists to run the country. Along with his consolidation of power, the space for press freedom has shrunk drastically, leading many Chinese journalists to quit the industry.

“It’s part of a general tightening up in levels of accessibility that’s been reflected in all the other things that happened,” said Mike Chinoy, CNN’s former bureau chief in Beijing.

Though the Two Sessions have always been choregraphed to a certain degree, in the past they allowed direct interactions between journalists and politicians, a rare opportunity for the outside world to gain