Commentary
Earlier this month, Beijing hosted a huge crowd of Chinese officials. They were there for the “Two Sessions” gathering, which included some 3,000 delegates of the National People’s Congress (NPC), the country’s nominal legislature, and an additional 2,000 members of the Chinese People’s Political Consultive Conference (CPPCC), and advisory body.
Though primarily a rubber stamp for the decisions of Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leader Xi Jinping and his allies chosen for leadership at last year’s 20th Party Congress, the announcements made in the past couple of weeks make clear the priorities and plans of China’s leadership.
Xi stressed that all efforts would put people first, describing the people as the decisive force for building China. His people-centered philosophy, he insisted, includes all peoples and ethnic groups in China. Despite this predictable boilerplate, the plans he and his fellow speakers advanced placed their emphasis elsewhere—on the military and what could only be called the international contest for technological dominance….