China’s 2021 ‘Accomplishments’: What Chinese Premier Li Didn’t Mention in His Economic Report

Beneath the claims lie many uncomfortable facts

Chinese Premier Li Keqiang speaks from the podium at the opening session of the National People's Congress at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, China, on March 5, 2022. Kevin Frayer/Getty Images

News Analysis

Watching the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) “democracy with Chinese characteristics” in action is illuminating, mind-boggling, and laughable. These also apply to formal presentations by Party officials to their rubber-stamp legislature, the National People’s Congress (NPC).

• Illuminating in the absurdity of the CCP’s ongoing efforts to insist that its version of “democracy” compares in any way to commonly understood definitions.
• Mind-boggling in considering the manpower expended in relentlessly attempting to create the notion that there is anything democratic whatsoever in the Chinese regime or in the NPC.
• Laughable in seeing the sloganeering, cliches, and downright gobbledygook used, which parrot Western concepts in a blatant attempt to convince Chinese citizens (and others) that communist China “really, really is” a bona fide democracy.

Before we get into the laughable as it applies to Chinese Premier Li Keqiang’s recent economic report to the 13th People’s Congress, let us dispense with the CCP’s notion that China is anything remotely resembling a democracy.