On January 30, China announced that the first meeting of the Thirteenth National People’s Congress will be held in Beijing on March 5. As of the current time, the delegate name list has been finalized. It is particularly notable that, like a few other top leaders of the country, Xi Jinping made the delegate list from Inner Mongolia which is a different region from his residency. Voice of America published an article which was based on a panel discussion on how top leaders get assigned to a region which can be different the location of their residence. One panel commented that Xi changed the delegate selection criteria in 2013. Prior to 2013, leaders of the central administration needed to be assigned to a local region where they might have had work experience or which was their birthplace. The new regulation, after 2013, has the delegate selection tied to three requirements instead: the “one belt one road” project, an ethnic minority region, and a poverty relief target region. This is also an indication that Xi changed the rule to prevent the members of the top leadership from being assigned to a region with which they were familiar and where they, consequently, exercise too much influence. One panel also touched upon the delegate selection from Hong Kong. He said that the so called National Congress delegate does not represent the interests of the Hong Kong people. The Hong Kong people did not selected them and they don’t have an office in Hong Kong, so the people in Hong Kong do not know where to find them to raise their voice. He stated that the National People’s Congress and the National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference are just like a flower vase and just like a voting machine. They don’t represent anyone other than the interest of the ruling party.
Source: Voice of America, February 1, 2018
https://www.voachinese.com/a/voaweishi-20180201-io-china-npr-xi/4234699.html