Sawt Falasteen - China wraps up key political meet with call for 'unrelenting struggle'

Nearly 3,000 delegates congregated in Beijing's Great Hall of the People on Tuesday afternoon before President Xi Jinping entered a cavernous hall to the sound of rousing martial music.

Senior Communist Party official Li Hongzhong then kicked off proceedings, standing in for NPC Standing Committee Chairman Zhao Leji, whose absence was attributed to a "respiratory infection".

Li presided over a series of votes on legislative documents and wrapped up the conference with a call to "struggle unrelentingly for the great endeavour of the rejuvenation of the Chinese people".

"Let us unite even more closely around the Party centre with Comrade Xi Jinping at its core!" he said, receiving rapturous applause before a military band played the national anthem.

The NPC is China's top legislature and usually meets for around a week each spring alongside the country's main political advisory body, the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference.

The conclave is meticulously choreographed, with voting tightly controlled and legislation pre-approved by the party.

Delegates on Tuesday almost unanimously approved work reports from the national government, supreme court and top public prosecutor.

They also greenlit resolutions on central and local budgets, economic development plans, and an amendment to the lawmakers' law -- with only a handful of votes in opposition.

"The meeting has successfully completed each item on the agenda (and) fully carried forward democracy," Li said in his closing remarks.

Representatives "strictly handled affairs in accordance with the law, clarified targets and tasks, and transmitted confidence and strength," he said.

- Uncertain world -

The most closely watched moments of the conclave came last week, when Premier Li Qiang delivered the annual government work report.

He announced an ambitious economic growth target of "around five percent" -- matching last year's goal but still a far cry from the double-digit figures that powered China's rise.

China has struggled to sustain a strong recovery since the Covid-19 pandemic, with its vast economy groaning under a prolonged property sector crisis, chronically low consumption, and high youth unemployment.

Beijing faces further headwinds with the return of US President Donald Trump, who has slapped punitive import tariffs on a range of Chinese products as part of a brewing trade war that Beijing has pledged to fight "to the end".

The work report vowed to make domestic demand the "main engine and anchor" of growth, adding that Beijing should "move faster to address inadequate domestic demand, particularly insufficient consumption".

In a rare move, Premier Li also said China would hike its fiscal deficit by one percentage point to its highest level in well over a decade, giving Beijing more latitude to tackle the slowdown.

Culture minister Sun Yeli on Tuesday hailed a modest revival in China's tourism sector, saying changes in consumer demand were due to the "modernisation process and the continuous improvement of people's living standards".

"In the past, people valued the practical value of products, but now they value their cultural qualities and their aesthetic and emotional value," he said on the sidelines of Tuesday's meeting.

Also last week, China announced a 7.2 percent increase to its defence budget this year -- the same percentage as 2024 -- as Beijing rapidly modernises its armed forces amid intensifying strategic competition with the United States.

C.Hamad--SF-PST