Consultative sessions promote understanding

The bi-weekly consultation session of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference — which was restored in 2013 — has become a platform to promote consultative democracy and mutual understanding.

“Leaders of the national committee of the CPPCC are able to meet about 400 CPPCC members a year, including many members from non-Communist parties and those with no political party affiliation,” said Yu Zhengsheng, chairman of the National Committee of the CPPCC.

The first session on Oct 22, 2013 — held after a hiatus of 47 years — discussed economic development. Since then the CPPCC has held 46 sessions, pooling wisdom from more than 900 members and experts on topics from social and economic development to nuclear power.

The sessions invite members from various fields and backgrounds — mainly from non-Communist parties or those with no party affiliation — to discuss and propose solutions to practical problems, and is an innovative mechanism for mainly non-Communist parties to take part in the political advisory process.

To fully represent opinions from different parties, the CPPCC deliberately invites experts with different views, as happened during a session to discuss nuclear energy.

“China’s technology is too immature to establish

or more members and experts have attended bi-weekly consultation sessions. Number of bi-weekly consultation sessions of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference held since 2013.

nuclear energy plants. The country should control the number of nuclear energy plants,” said He Zuoxiu, an academic with the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

Wan Gang, head of the China Institute of Atomic Energy, disagreed, saying that “nuclear energy is clean energy. China should increase the use of it”.

Such conflict helps drive the meeting toward solving practical problems such as injury insurance for construction workers, the protection of traditional villages and the development of household services.

Based on the work of the State Council and the CPPCC, other government organs including the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security and the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development drafted guidance about work-related injury insurance.

“The problem has existed since I was the minister of construction (from 1998 to 2001), and it was finally solved at the session,” said Yu Zhengsheng.