The “Two Sessions” gatherings of the country’s parliament and top advisory body are primarily talking shops, rubber-stamping decisions made by the Communist Party while giving a veneer of openness and accountability.
All eyes will be on Wednesday's opening of the National People's Congress (NPC) parliament, where Premier Li Qiang will lay out economic growth goals for 2025, offering insights into just how optimistic Beijing is about the year ahead, as well as new military spending.
Many see that as an ambitious objective given the headwinds China is battling, and Beijing's continued reluctance to inject the economy with the kind of large-scale stimulus observers say it needs.
“Any one of those challenges would be a headache for officials; combined, they are a migraine.”
Likely top of the agenda is Trump, who in just over a month back in the White House has overturned the international order and proven even more unpredictable than in his first term.
The move could affect hundreds of billions of dollars in trade and may worsen if the magnate follows through on his threats of even higher customs levies.
That effort has driven Beijing’s policy of technological self-reliance, part of a broader initiative by China’s leadership to develop “new quality productive forces” that it hopes can boost growth.
“Beijing is betting that a massive party-led push for research, innovation, commercialisation, manufacturing and digitalisation can create new economic growth drivers,“ analysts Neil Thomas and Jing Qian at the Asia Society said in a note.
Analysts also said pressure from Trump could encourage Beijing to step up the kinds of support for the economy seen last year -- interest rate cuts, easing local government debt pressure and expanding subsidy programmes for household goods.
And more “will be rolled out later in the year... should there be additional significant tariffs or other external shocks, or should the property downturn turn worse”, she added.
Another key issue is weak domestic consumption.
Analysts expect policymakers to broaden the scope of a consumer goods trade-in programme initiated last year that allows shoppers to exchange older home appliances and other items.
But they warn much deeper issues are driving a crisis of confidence in the economy, which long enjoyed double-digit growth but has languished since the pandemic.
Last month, new home prices in China’s most developed “first-tier” cities fell 3.4 percent year-on-year, according to the National Bureau of Statistics.
“Our prognosis of China’s problems continues to lie in housing,“ Oxford Economics’ Loo said, pointing to the impact the crisis was having on everything from local government finances to consumer demand.
“Overcoming these powerful negative feedback loops in the economy this year would be policymakers’ key task.”
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