The Two Sessions but make it statistics

A non-peer-reviewed study of major news outlets shows that despite a historic event taking place, people have very little of substance to say about it.

The annual Two Sessions meeting of all the members of the National People’s Congress (NPC) and the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) is one of the most important events on the China-watcher calendar. It sets the tone for China’s governance for the upcoming year, sees important personnel changes, and approves new laws. This year was a particularly interesting session in terms of appointments and legislation, with ‘Team Xi’ taking over key roles and new rules around law-making and data sharing introduced.

This newsletter isn’t about any of those interesting things though. If you want to hear my thoughts on what was actually covered, look out for an upcoming podcast where I discuss the ins and outs of the two sessions. Today, we’re looking at something way more interesting – data!

I was curious to see how certain themes were approached by different sides, and gauge the difference in sentiment between China and the West when it comes to hopes and fears over China’s future. But I wanted to take an innovative approach. I blame the China Charts Substack for getting me into graphs. This took me way too much time to do (hence why everyone else has moved on to Xi visiting Russia, but I’m still on an event that took place weeks ago).

I took a random sample of 40 articles, 20 Western (this includes outlets aimed at Westerners but based in Asia, as well as those owned by Western allies, e.g. India) and 20 Chinese. I looked at three major overarching themes – domestic politics, foreign policy, and economics – and 5 keywords within each theme. I then charted whether or not a given article discussed any or all of the keywords, and the tone of that discussion. 

I’m hoping that the results will tell us a few things:

1. How frequently a given topic was discussed in Western articles vs Chinese articles

2. The tone of the discussion (i.e. positive, negative or neutral)

3. How important the keyword is to the theme it falls under

This way we’ll have a good understanding of what the most important topics were that came out of the two sessions, and how they will be portrayed and discussed by the West and China moving forward. We can also delve into the general talking points, so as to create a reference for key policies that come out of China over the coming years.

Now let’s look at the pretty charts I made. Shout out to Charlie for teaching me how data works.

Domestic politics

The keywords for this section are:

• Hong Kong (don’t @ me)

• Science and technology

• Reform (specifically reforms to the government and new appointments)

• Covid

• Stability

(I just want to note that in general there are more keywords per article in Western pieces than in Chinese pieces. This is because Western articles tend to cover large swathes of a topic or summarise the entire Two Sessions, whereas Chinese pieces tend to cover a single topic or keyword.)

In my podcast episode on the two sessions, I mention that I felt stability was the overarching theme of the two meetings in general, and that we’re seeing a shift in focus away from rapid and continuous growth to the sharing of the fruits of China’s labour across the entire population. Although this theme is brought up quite a few times in Chinese press (it's mentioned directly in 7 articles), it’s rarely touched upon in foreign media. I’m not sure if this is because they felt it was relatively unimportant (the economy and foreign relations are much more discussed) or if it is because they didn’t pick up on this motif.

The papers that did have something to say about the topic of stability tended to be more negative. They focus on the departure of Premier Li Keqiang and his replacement by Xi’s ‘crony’ Li Qiang and other Xi acolytes, which will lead to a more ‘Maoist’ style leadership style ruled by personal politics and constantly shifting priorities. As the Diplomat argues in several instances, “it is possible that Xi keeps his ally in a position of relative weakness, as part of a Mao-style strategy that the scholar Victor Shih calls ‘coalitions of the weak’.”

Though The NY Times pointed to the fact that China is likely to become more centralised under Xi, they don’t actually opine as to whether or not this is a bad thing. “Whether it is politics, the military or the economy, all roads lead to Mr. Xi.” At this point, that goes without saying.

Despite everything that’s happened in the past few years, Hong Kong is mentioned a single time in the Western articles I sampled. In this case, it was only to point to Li Qiang’s words on the matter, and to suggest that the “one country, two systems” may be a template for China’s reunification with Taiwan, which is becoming more of a common theme in Chinese press too. This meshes with other discussions we’ve had about Taiwan, where we put forward the idea that China is going with a more slow and steady approach to reunification, and invasion is a risk China is unlikely to take.

Foreign policy 

The keywords for this section are:

• Cooperation

• Military

• US

• Taiwan 

• Security

I’ve classified some commentary, most notably from The NY Times, as ‘negative’ on topics such as the US and the possibility of military conflict. This is less of a reflection of the tone of the authors themselves or their reporting, and more a reflection of the content of the piece, which is essentially a compilation of the words of Xi and foreign minister Qi Gang. This is also reflected in Chinese pieces, and why commentary on the US overall tends to skew negative.

The Diplomat picked up on the phrase “dare to struggle” (敢于斗争, translated by Xinhua as “have the courage to fight”) as a key new catchphrase for China’s foreign policy:

“This is China’s preferred branding for what overseas observers has derisively dubbed “wolf warrior diplomacy.” It seems to be a new catchphrase, symbolically replacing the long-standing “hide your capabilities and bide your time” dictum from Deng Xiaoping.

Qin also dismissed the Biden administration’s calls to “establish guardrails” to help manage China-U.S. competition, which Beijing clearly sees as disingenuous in the midst of Washington’s other policy moves… Xi and his deputies see China as caught up in an existential, and increasingly dire, fight amid “profound and complex changes in both the domestic and international landscape.”

It’s interesting that some outlets on both sides chose to focus on the negative aspects of US-China relations, while others chose to focus on the potential benefits of cooperation. Many of them even used the same sound bites from Li Qiang’s Q&A session to argue both sides of the same coin. Li actually said very little on the topic, but the fact that his hopeful words of cooperation contrasted so sharply with Xi’s harsher points about ‘encirclement’ by the US tended to be picked up more often in a single Western piece, whereas Chinese pieces tended to be either negative or hopeful/positive on the issue.

In general, Chinese pieces seemed ambivalent, but remained cautiously optimistic that issues such as Taiwan would not lead to full-blown war. If anything, they seemed to link the US more with economic issues, and avoid tying Taiwan with foreign relations, even though I have decided to include it in this category. The Chinese press also managed to neatly avoid the issues of military spending, and the fact that China plans to convert their military into a ‘Great Wall of Steel’ to defend the nation.

However, it’s good to know that our ever reliable Global Times did not fail to get at least one dig in at the US:

“The decay of US "democracy" is highlighted by the capitol riots in 2021, increasing gun violence, intensified racial problems, and more importantly, politicians would rather use those issues to achieve their own political purposes, rather than addressing those woes. Ironically, democracy has been used more frequently as a weapon for the US government to attack countries in the international arena.”

Economics

The keywords for this section are:

• GDP (growth)

• Foreign trade (+FDI)

• Private sector (+entrepreneurship)

• (un)Employment

• Green/environmental

Everyone is in agreement that the CCP can no longer rely on the double digit growth that characterised the 00s, nor can it set lofty economic goals such as alleviating extreme poverty. Those days are over. Continued growth is good, even necessary, but it will no longer be the main basis of legitimacy. Instead,the government “will give top priority to stabilizing growth, and achieving quality development in 2023,” putting the people first and encouraging quality over quantity in science, technology, and entrepreneurship.

I actually learnt a new word as a result of scouring these articles: 6G. While China “is at the global forefront of 5G development,” they are also apparently forging ahead with the research of 6G with their flagship platform IMT-2030 (6G) Promotion Group (I live in the UK so I’m still on 4G and, *shudder*, 3G on occasion).

“The report said the world is expected to see the commercialization of 6G around 2030, and the 6G network will realize the deep integration of the physical and the virtual worlds, and build a new world featuring the intelligent connection of everything.

Although there is no universally accepted definition of 6G, the technology is predicted to provide faster speeds, lower latency and more bandwidth than 5G.”

In terms of variety of commentary, while Western papers spoke the most about economics and the financial sector, they had the least to say on it really, and their commentary was broadly neutral. The NY Times’ commentary tends to be more factual, for example on private businesses they state “While past Chinese leaders sought to maintain a buffer between the party and the private sector, Mr. Xi has erased those lines and made clear that businesses are there to advance the party’s agenda.” Will this be good or bad for China’s overall economy? Only time will tell I suppose.

They do point to challenges facing the financial sector, for example the floundering of the property market and the impoverished state of local authorities. But pointing out that China seeks “to correct the 'excess financial exuberance' that has caused dozens of real estate developers to default on loans and left the sector awash in debt,” is not exactly a critique. China’s businessmen must pledge their loyalty to the regime, but this is nothing new. NY Times, and most outlets in general, seem hesitant to pass judgement or make flippant predictions.

By contrast, Chinese press was either supremely positive about China’s capabilities, or pragmatic about the challenges the economy faces and how to resolve them. They also tend to link individual economic goals with the overall theme of stability. For example, on food production “China will make sure that the rice bowls of its 1.4 billion people will always be firmly held in their own hands,” by stabilising grain output and increasing technological modernisation of the agricultural sector. That just sounds like a good idea to me. And this is coming from the Global Times, usually the most bullish publication when it comes to China’s capabilities.

Conclusions

Overall, I would say that commentaries from both sides were more neutral than I was expecting.

If you’re looking for neutral, factual Western outlets, NY Times is probably your best bet. It’s not very beginner friendly, but its writers also don't try to shove an opinion down your throat, which is nice. Grid – a publication I had never actually heard of before writing this post – was also fairly neutral, and outlined the key points from the Two Sessions quite nicely. If you’re looking for strong opinions, unsurprisingly, your top choices may be The Diplomat or Foreign Affairs. In this particular study, the Asia Times pieces were also quite neutral, but this is not necessarily always the case.

I would say that the lack of in-depth analysis on the part of some major Western outlets was a little disappointing. I wasn’t looking for conflict necessarily, but it would be nice to see them at least pointing to potentially positive developments where they’re obvious, or saying “hey, Xi is centralising power, that may be bad for these reasons.” It almost feels as if they felt obligated to be more neutral than usual, as if they lacked confidence. The only outlets with a spin were the usual suspects, and their notes on the proceedings were entirely predictable. Overall, Western media was quite flavourless – there was an air of ‘watching and waiting’.

Chinese outlets came out a little bipolar, but that may be because I have a tendency to read all Chinese news as a whole, rather than seeing them as individual outlets with their own voice. As always, the Global Times has quite a forceful, authoritarian, anti-Western point to make, whereas SCMP was more thoughtful, and China Daily was positive and hopeful, especially on more contentious issues such as China-US relations.

Despite the importance of this particular Two Sessions, with a historic third term for Xi, re-centralisation of power by the party, unprecedented economic challenges, and possible imminent military conflict, I felt that no one had a lot to say. Maybe everyone’s just confused by the fact that China has suddenly become an international arbiter of peace, or they’re distracted by Xi’s current foray into Russia. Either way even the experts seem cautiously… cautious, and definitely unwilling to make major pronouncements. 

It seems China’s unpredictability has finally stumped even the keenest observers. We await Xi’s next move with baited breath.

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Sinobabble Extended Universe

The latest podcast episode is an update on Hong Kong. Listen here, on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, or on Youtube. 

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