Tighter control and high-tech push: Key takeaways from China’s biggest annual political event

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As China grapples with a struggling economy and an intensifying tech war with the United States, its leaders had one message for the thousands of political elites gathering in Beijing: the country will stay the course in becoming a high-tech powerhouse under the helm of one man – supreme leader Xi Jinping.

That note of confidence was echoed throughout a week of highly choreographed meetings of China’s rubber-stamp national legislature and top political advisory body, which concluded Monday with a ceremony in the cavernous Great Hall of the People.

The event, held largely without Covid restrictions for the first time in years, is a rare chance for the world to glimpse into an increasingly opaque political system under Xi.

Here are the major takeaways from the gathering:

Tightening control

The closing day of the National People’s Congress legislature on Monday was missing a key event – a press conference conducted by the Chinese premier. For decades, this curtain-closing “two sessions” tradition had offered foreign media and the Chinese public a rare opportunity to get first-hand insight into the thinking of the country’s nominal No. 2 official, who is charged with running its economy.

However, Beijing made the surprise announcement that it was scrapping the event last week, in a move that generated concern among observers about the ever-shrinking transparency of the Chinese government.

The more recent tradition of collective leadership, a model that came to the fore after the chaos of Mao Zedong’s strongman rule, has taken a backseat once