The first annual sessions of China's 11th National People's Congress (NPC) and the 11th National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (or CPPCC), abbreviated as the "two annual sessions", have drawn special attention from both at home and overseas this year.
The present world economy is probably most difficult and faced with toughest challenges in a year after the entry of the 21st century. This shapes the most eminent impression I have got from the World Economic Forum held in Davos, Switzerland in January, as some political figures and economists acknowledged at the forum that "obviously, 2007 was a much tougher year than expected, and 2008 is probably going to the same."
Why I should say so? It is because the US economy will possibly slip into a recession, and as the U.S. represents the sole superpower in the world today, its economic aggregates make up about 30 percent of the global total. If the US economy falls into a recession, the global economy will be negatively affected as a whole.
The US sub-prime mortgage crisis occurred in April 2007 with its impact rippling far and wide like snowballs. Its losses were estimated at some 50 billion US dollars at start, but finance ministers from the G-7 group of industrialized nations noted that its losses could reach 400 billion dollars, and nobody knew whether its impact had bottom out. The reason why it had worried attendees at the Davos Forum was that no one could tell what would be the exact scale of the US sub-prime crisis.
Economic personnel at the Davos Forum were unanimous in the opinion that the US sub-prime mortgage crisis posed only a sign of in-depth problems in the US economy. The United States has reached 44 trillion dollars in both public and private debt service, equal to 3.4 times of its annual gross national product (GNP) in recent years. It embodies a prolonged, accumulated outcome of the Americans' over-consumption and excessive loaning, which gave rise to two major deficits in the U.S.
The US economy will probably step into a recession and the European economy could slow down; both are definitely no good news. Nevertheless, there was a sense of optimism whenever the new emerging economies and especially the economy of Asian nations were mentioned at the Davos Forum, with the case of Chinese and Indian economies retaining high growth rates.
The economic aggregates of developing nations make up half the total global economy, and the economy of developing nations shows a "bright spot" of the grizzled global economy. How China is to re-act in this stark global economic situation? The international community will get answers from China's current NPC and CPPCC National Committee sessions. For this aim, more reporters from overseas have been sent in for the coverage of the grand event, as latest developments in the Chinese economy have something to do not with China but with the world at large.
In term of China's domestic situation, this is the first year following the convocation of the 17th National Congress Communist Party of China (CPC) in October 2007. The tasks set at the congress will be implemented in the next five years and the blueprint mapped out at the congress will be translated into reality.
The reason why the "two annual sessions" are particularly conspicuous this year is that the government for a new term, or the new-term executive body of NPC, will be constituted with new faces to appear during the current sessions. It is up to the new government to carry out various related strategic goals, principles and policies. The "two annual sessions" will also discuss the plans for institutional structural reform of the State Council, or the Chinese cabinet. Since the launch of the reform and opening up measures in the late 1970s, China has performed fulfilled five government structuring reforms, and this is the sixth reform on the institutional restructuring. And such an institutional reform will give rise to changes, and so it will of course arrest the wide-ranging attention.
This year is renowned as the Olympic year in China, as the 2008 summer Olympics is scheduled to be held in the national capital of Beijing in upcoming August, and it represents a big event for both China and the world. People in the country and acorss the world have been looking forward to it with great, keen interest.
The overall economic situation is basically good and sound in China but, as the global economic situation tends to be stark, it is however confronted with some new problems after a double digit economic growth rate had sustained for five years in a row. Moreover, China has been hit by wicked snowstorms early in the year that paralyzed part of central and southern China and by increased pressure on CPI inflation rate as well as on the employment sotiatopm. Furthermore, the environment pollution hazards have been turned grave as the industrialization advances in China. So, greater efforts have to be stepped up in this regard. These problems pose precisely the "hot-spot" issues that could interest both Chinese and overseas media and the general public.
The NPC and CPPCC National Committee sessions are sure to be a great success thanks to detailed, meticulous arrangements made by central authorities, and this represents happy tidings not only for China and but for the entire world.
By Wu Jianmin, an especially-invited guest commentator for the People'Daily and the president of China's elite Foreign Affairs University in Beijing, and translated by the PD Online.
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