China opens political advisory session
The Second Session of the 11th National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), the country’s top advisory session, has been started in the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on Tuesday afternoon. There are about 2,160 CPPCC National Committee members coming throughout the country to attend the opening meeting. They will underline major concerns of the nation’s development during the annual session scheduled to conclude on March 12.
All attendees sang the national anthem after the session started at about 3 p.m., for the first time in the history of China’s annual “two sessions” of the political advisory body and the national legislature. Previously the national anthem was played at such occasions, with attendees standing and listening to it in silence. CPPCC National Committee Chairman Jia Qinglin delivered a report on the work of the CPPCC National Committee’s Standing Committee over the past year. “The CPPCC (last year)…made important contributions to building a moderately prosperous society in all respects, accelerating socialist modernization and promoting the great cause of peaceful reunification of the motherland, and set this National Committee off to a sound start,” Jia said.
The top political advisor said the year 2009 marks the 60th anniversary of the founding of New China and the CPPCC and is crucial for properly responding to the global financial crisis and promoting further development of the cause of the Party and the country. “We must…accord highest priority to maintaining steady and relatively rapid economic development, take safeguarding social harmony and stability as our primary responsibility (this year),” Jia said. The political consultants raised 5,056 proposals on politics, economy, science, ecological conservation and other issues into file over the past year, of which 99.03 percent had received due consideration or had been handled in line with China’s laws and regulations, as of Feb. 20, 2009, said Zhang Rongming, vice-chairwoman of the CPPCC National Committee.
Top Communist Party of China (CPC) and state leaders Hu Jintao, Wu Bangguo, Wen Jiabao, Li Changchun, Xi Jinping, Li Keqiang, He Guoqiang and Zhou Yongkang were present at the session’s opening. Founded in 1949, the CPPCC consists of elite members of the Chinese society who are willing to serve the think tank for the government and for the country’s legislative and judicial organs. As an open forum where the CPC, non-Communist parties and people without party affiliation discuss state affairs freely and on an equal footing, the CPPCC has been the manifestation of China’s socialist democracy.
Highlights of Jia Qinglin’s work report of top political advisory body
Top Chinese political advisor Jia Qinglin delivered a report on the work of the national top political advisory body at the opening meeting of its annual full session which had been started here in the Great Hall of the People on Tuesday afternoon.
Following are the highlights of the Report on the Work of the Standing Committee of the National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), which was distributed to journalists upon the opening of the session: CONSOLIDATING POLITICAL UNITY AND COOPERATION; MAKING SUGGESTIONS FOCUSING ON ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT; EARTHQUAKE RELIEF AND POST-QUAKE RECONSTRUCTION; BEIJING OLYMPICS; HONG KONG, MACAO, TAIWAN AND OVERSEAS CHINESE; FOREIGN CONTACTS; MAJOR EXPERIENCE FROM WORK IN 2008; SUGGESTIONS FOR NEXT YEAR’S WORK
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