Haunted By Virus, China Gears Up For Annual Congress

BEIJING, China (AFP) — China’s biggest political event of the year opens Friday after months of delay over coronavirus fears, with President Xi Jinping determined to project strength and control over the outbreak despite international criticism and a wounded economy.

The 3,000 members of the National People’s Congress (NPC), China’s legislature, will gather in Beijing this week in highly choreographed meetings to rubber-stamp bills, budgets and personnel moves.

The annual gatherings have been occasions for the Communist Party to tout its achievements, set the country’s economic agenda and consolidate Xi’s power.

But this year’s congress comes on the back of the biggest challenge of Xi’s political life, with a virus that has killed thousands of people, paralyzed the world’s second-biggest economy and sparked a bout of online criticism of the government.

The Communist Party put off the “Two Sessions,” originally scheduled for March, for the first time since the Cultural Revolution as the country battled the coronavirus, which surfaced in the central city of Wuhan late last year.