A day in the life of a CPPCC member during Two Sessions

“This is thesecond Year ofmyfirst term servingas aCPPCCmember,” Wang Xiaochuan told CGTN during an interview.

Wangis the chief executive officer of Beijing Sougou Technology Development, a company best known for the development of a range of popular Sogou-branded products, including a search engine, Chinese character input tool and web browser. At this time of Year, heisconstantly traveling back and forth betweenhis company andthe Two Sessions'meeting station.

Withfour proposals this Year, Wang is trying toincrease the amountofAI technology in people's daily lives, especially in health care, and he's also callingon the government to widen access to public datain order tohelp AI develop in China.

Last Year, one of his proposals was fortax cutsto drive innovation and technology development. Not only did it getpromoted as a “key proposal”， but it has since beenpartially adopted and converted into policy.

Even thoughthe second session of the 13thNational Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), the country's top political advisory body, is now in session, it's not easy to explain how the political body functionsand why it‘sorganized the way it is. Howexactly does each CPPCC membermake aproposaland how do theirproposalsget approved?I'm following Wang to find out.

A day with a CPPCC member

At 8 o'clock in the morning, I met Wang at the hotel where all the CPPCC members are stationed during the Two Sessions and followed him to the group discussion.

It started with CPPCC members sharing their own thoughts on the government report, which was delivered by Premier Li Keqiang at the NPC opening. This wasfollowed by discussions on each member's specific proposals.

The idea is that all the members should monitor their own field and areas of interest, and spend their spare time doing research beforecomingup with suggestions for policy changes.

“One of my proposals for this Year is to call on the government to open access to public data, including in the fields of transportation and meteorology,”said Wang.

As the CPPCC members come from different areas (includingtheHong Kong and Macao Special Administrative Regions) and all sorts of professions, political leanings and walks of life, they naturally have different perspectives, thus, the debates in the group discussionsare usually quite lively and loud.

The CPPCC has a powerful permanentnine-member Standing Committee which decides who will become a member. You see, CPPCC members are not elected by popular vote, but in fact selected based on guidelines relating todiversity and nomination processes.

For more, please check out my vlog – “One day spent withaCPPCC member.”