Beijing, March 12 China's Parliament concluded its highly publicized annual session on Thursday, approving a range of laws, including the new five-year plan to address the country's economic slowdown, an increased defense budget, and the controversial ethnic law mandating Mandarin for all ethnic minorities.
The National People's Congress (NPC), often referred to as the rubber-stamp Parliament due to its routine endorsement of laws passed by the ruling Communist Party of China (CPC), concluded its annual session in less than two weeks.
The NPC, along with the top advisory body, the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), along with over 5,000 deputies, began their annual sessions in the first week of March.
The two sessions drew international attention amid the US-Iran war and massive military purges initiated by Chinese President Xi Jinping.
Xi, 72, attended sessions of both houses.
Earlier, in his address to over 240 deputies attending the two sessions, Xi, who also heads the Central Military Commission (CMC), called on military officials to increase political loyalty, meaning adherence to the Party's leadership.
This was Xi's first meeting after the removal of two senior military officials, including the highest-ranking PLA General Zhang Youxia, in January, which was widely seen as a major purge of the PLA in recent history, causing shockwaves among its ranks.
Significantly, Zhang Shengmin, the last remaining General of the six-member CMC, in his address to the current parliament session, urged the military to resolutely obey Xi's commands.
The NPC session began on March 5, with Premier Li Qiang, a close associate of Xi, presenting the government's work report, which lowered China's GDP target to 4.5 to 5 per cent for this year, in the face of Trump's tariff war, the worsening global crisis following the US-Iran war, and domestic economic headwinds due to a property market slump and unemployment.
China has set a 5 per cent GDP target for the past three years amid growing domestic economic challenges.
China's economy grew by 5 per cent last year, reaching USD 20.01 trillion, fueled by robust exports despite US tariffs, while domestic consumption remained sluggish.
The NPC approved a defense budget of approximately 1.91 trillion yuan (about USD 278 billion), a 7 per cent increase from the previous year in yuan terms, as part of China's efforts to rapidly modernize its armed forces to keep pace with the US military.
The parliament session, China's largest annual event, took place amidst attacks by the US and Israel on Iran, a close ally of Beijing for over a decade.
While China benefited from procuring Iranian goods cheaply, Tehran gained much of its military procurement from the Chinese military.
As attacks on Tehran intensified, disrupting global oil supplies, including China's, international attention focused on Beijing's reaction, whether it would provide open military support, as Tehran was expecting.
However, China, which is preparing to host US President Donald Trump's visit from March 31st to April 4th, strongly condemned the attacks and the killing of Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Syed Ali Khamenei but remained neutral in the conflict.
Earlier, China declined to take any military action when US forces invaded Venezuela and captured President Nicholas Maduro, a close ally of Beijing.
Observers say that China is avoiding confrontation with the US ahead of Trump's visit, as it hopes to secure a tariff deal with Washington, while also maintaining the option to take over Taiwan at an appropriate time without major clashes with the US.
The NPC also approved the 15th five-year plan, considered the most consequential initiative to revive China's sluggish economy, which has been hampered by stagnant domestic consumption among its declining population.
The plan aims to accelerate scientific breakthroughs, particularly in AI applications across the economy.
The plan shifts China's focus from infrastructure development to technological breakthroughs, with increased investments in new productive forces, backed by an "AI+" plan to integrate AI into manufacturing, logistics, healthcare, and education.
The plan also emphasizes investment in semiconductors, robotics, biotechnology, quantum computing, and emerging fields such as 6G communications and brain-computer interfaces.
The NPC also approved the controversial new ethnic law, aimed at culturally and linguistically integrating with the majority Han Chinese community, which constitutes over 90 per cent of China's population.
The new law strengthens the legal foundation for advancing high-quality development and common prosperity among its 56 ethnic groups, including Tibetans and Uyghur Muslims, who make up 8.9 per cent of the population, and who have resisted the CPC's efforts to completely assimilate them into mainstream Han culture for decades.
Critics say the new law represents a setback for the identity of ethnic minorities as it mandates the use of Mandarin Chinese in compulsory education, among other things.