Nigeria and The Opportunity of the China “Two Sessions”

By Charles Onunaiju, Abuja:

During this week, a pivotal and significant event in China’s political calendar would hold in the capital Beijing. It is the full sessions of the country’s top Advisory body, the National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) and the National People’s Congress (NPC), the country’s top legislature and supreme organ of the State. Both bodies serve five-year terms and hold a plenary session each year. It is the convocation of these two bodies, which meets separately but almost at the same time that has become known as “Two Sessions”.

As strategic partners with the intent to build “high level China-Nigeria community with a shared future”, it is only natural that both sides should strive to understand each other better, using the tool of mutual learnings to deepen strategic knowledge accumulations and sharings. The opportunities of each other would be understood and explored if both sides understand the unique nature of each other more comprehensively and proceed from this understanding to enhance bilateral ties.

The annual convocation of China’s “Two Sessions” is the grand display and structural expressions of China’s inclusive, participatory and consultative political process. The Chinese People’s Political and Consultative Conference is the first institution of modern China in which the governing Communist Party of China (CPC), other eight political parties, and other social forces including ethnic nationalities, persons without political affiliations, women, youths and even oversea Chinese deliberate on key national issues and forge consensus. Until 1954, when the supreme State organ and the country’s top legislature, the NPC was established, the CPPCC filled the legislative gap.

Because of its historical significance as the key platform of all Chinese people across all walks of life, the CPPCC was retained as a top advisory body and with the passage of time, its role as the classical expression of China’s consultative democratic process has further deepened and its advisory roles in China’s political life has become emblematic of the country’s whole-process democracy that combine procedures with substantive deliverables, ensuring that governance is not only defined by rules but by the actual delivery of material dividends that contributes and adds to the well-being of the people.

The National People’s Congress (NPC) is the China’s highest organ of State power, which means that in addition to its responsibility as the country’s top legislature, it exercises the powers to elect national leaders, approve government budgets, national development plans among other functions.

The “Two Sessions” offers a glimpse to China’s economic direction and it is important as a key partner of China, Nigeria pay attention and examine the outcomes of the meetings. The government will deliver a report to the NPC which would contain such vital economic priorities as the annual growth target.

Alongside the GDP target, the government work report would contain other major economic indicators including the deficit-to-GDP ratio and inflation target and also set development priorities for the year.
Further vital issues in the government work report will include a plan for national economic and social development of the year and the government budgets would also be reviewed. These would provide a clear picture of China’s policy priorities, development goals and challenges. In addition to offering clarity to a range of issues, which is of interest both to the Chinese and the rest of the world, the NPC would also enact or amend laws particularly those that add momentum to the country’s modernization efforts in the new era.  These includes the constitution, the civil code, the supervision law and the foreign investment law.

In addition to those broad issues, the annual legislative plan would be unveiled as lawmakers review the work report of the NPC standing committee. The standing committee is the permanent organ elected by the full session of the parliamentary body to oversee its routine legislative function for the five-year period of the legislative term.

In addition to the work report of the government, the Heads of the Supreme People’s Court would deliver its work report detailing the performance of the judicial bodies. Both the NPC and the CPPCC are vital indispensable and effective tool in China’s governance structure and both their supervisory, advisory and legislative roles constitute the core of the country’s consultative democratic process in which inclusivity and consensus-building enables the condition for sustainable national development.

As a major partner, Nigeria can appreciate better the policy outlines, directions and implications for trade, investments and other issues of cooperation with a better understanding of the vital roles of the key institutions in China’s political and economic process. The advisory role and outcomes of the National committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) are not taken lightly and its representation and composition reflects the inclusive and broad nature of the CPC led multi-party consultative political trajectories whose outcomes includes forging consensus on national goals and priorities and commitment to attain them.

The unique nature of China’s political system is in the framework which institutions function not only as the structural expression of broadly shared values within the society but governance is epitomized not only in the shared values but in the common consensus and aspirations for better life for all, enabling both citizens participation and leadership responsibility and accountability. When institutions and its functions emanates from a broadly shared values, obtained through a historic trajectory of deliberate inclusion, it coalesces into an unbreakable national will and becomes a potent force for national development.

The Communist Party of China (CPC), opened the way and clarified the path for the construction of China’s national will by building a framework of inclusion through broad and extensive consultation, cooperation and collaboration. The national template of accommodation, inclusion and cooperation in a CPC-led process have proved its viability by the phenomenal growth in China’s national aggregates, influence and global reach but more importantly in the wellbeing of the Chinese people who crossed the historic line of ending extreme poverty.

The “Two Sessions” may elucidate and clarify contemporary issues of China’s economic directions, crucial targets and figures but it is also a demonstration of China’s national initiative and wisdom to design, own and uphold its institutions established from its own experience, national conditions and social realities.
As Nigeria is patently troubled by institutional dysfunction, structural ambiguities in its organization and has therefore, historically punched far below its potential, it has become important not only to reform the existing institutions but to reconstruct the institution not only to reflect the broadly shared values but to integrate the values to their essence.

China’s political process is uniquely Chinese but it offers simple lessons that political institutions are not articles in the shelf to be just taken and transplanted to any place. The viability of any political institution and the processes that enables and sustains it, is a direct consequence of any country’s own historical experience, existential national condition and social reality.

Nigeria and China strategic partnership prioritize economic cooperation, governance experience-sharing, international cooperation. However, vigorous mutual learnings would help to uncover vital truths that would mutually enrich each other’s perspective in their respective struggles for modernization, especially in the new era.

Mr. Onunaiju is a scholar and an expert on Sino-Nigeria relations.