For more than 30 years, the Chinese premier’s annual news conference is the only time a top leader has asked reporters questions about the state of the country. This is the only opportunity for members of the public to measure themselves as the official No. 2 of China. This is the only moment when some Chinese may feel a weak sense of political participation in a country without elections.
On Monday, China announced that the premier’s conference would no longer be held, marking the end of the country’s annual rubber-stamp legislature. With that move, an important institution of China’s reform era is gone.
“Welcome to the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea,” wrote one commentator on the social media platform Weibo, echoing the sentiment that China is increasingly resembling its dictatorial, hermitic neighbour. The search term “news conference” was censored on Weibo, and very few comments were left as of Monday night Beijing time.
Although loosely scripted, the premier’s news conference at the National People’s Congress was watched by the Chinese public and the world’s political and business elite for signs of a shift in economic policy and, occasionally, high -level power play that takes place beneath the surface.
“As the stage is managed, it’s a window to see how official China works and how official China explains itself to the Chinese people and the wider world,” said Charles Hutzler, a former colleague. I have attended 24 premier pressers. since 1988 as a journalist for the Voice of America, The Associated Press and The Wall Street Journal.
The decision to scrap the news conference reflects the dire economic situation facing China and the leadership’s growing tendency to put the country in a black box. And there’s the obvious takeaway: Xi Jinping, China’s top leader, is the sole ruler of a country of 1.4 billion people.
The demise of the news conference also erased the last vestiges of the reform era.
In the 1990s and 2000s, China had two major television events each year: the annual Lunar New Year TV gala and the annual news conference with the premier. (Think the Super Bowl and the Oscars in the United States, and more because China’s TV channels are few and the internet is new.)
The first memorable political moment on TV for many Chinese was in November 1987. The outgoing prime minister, Zhao Ziyang, mingled with foreign correspondents at a reception at the end of the Communist Party Congress. Talkative and smiling, he answered questions: Was there a power struggle within the party between the reformers and the conservatives? Was there freedom in China? Where was his dapper double-breasted suit made? Mr. Zhao, who was elected general secretary of the congress party, added: “Personally, I believe that I am more suitable for the position of premier. But they all want me to be the general secretary.”
Such a public statement by a Chinese official would be unthinkable today.
Mr. Zhao was later fired for opposing a bloody crackdown on Tiananmen Square protesters in 1989. He died while under house arrest. The transcript and the video of the reception show that he avoided the questions, except about his suit. (The suit came from a tailoring house in Beijing called Hongdu, or Red Capital.)
The news conference with the premier was institutionalized in 1993 but did not become a must-see TV event until Zhu Rongji, a sharp-tongued and amiable premier, took the stage in 1998. Expressing his determination to be a great premier, he declared, “Even if it is a mine or an abyss ahead, I will continue without hesitation.”
That event was so popular that two people involved in it became nationally famous: a woman journalist from a Hong Kong television station who asked, and a female staff member from the foreign ministry who interpreted for him in English.
Mr. Zhu’s successor, Wen Jiabao, did not make big news with his news conferences until his last, in 2012. Then, he talked about China’s need for political reform — the last time a top Chinese leader spoke of it — and foreshadowing the fall of Bo Xilai, a political rival of Mr. Xi.
Li Keqiang, who served as premier under Mr. Xi for a decade and sidelined by his domineering boss most of the time, scored points for transparency in 2020 when he said that about 600 million Chinese, or 43 percent of the population, earned a monthly income of only about $140. His comments poked holes in Mr. Xi that China is defeating poverty. When Mr. died Li unexpectedly in October, many Chinese went online to thank him for speaking the truth.
For the most part, the premiers used the venue to answer questions from the international media and talk about economic and foreign policies. According to a 2013 article in a state-backed publication, in the first news conferences held by Mr. Zhu, Mr. Wen and Mr. Li each took about half of the questions from foreign media outlets.
The premier’s news conferences, attended each year by up to 700 journalists, were originally intended to provide interview opportunities for foreign media, allowing them to better understand China, the article said.
Under Mr. Xi, the Chinese government has expelled and harassed foreign journalists, raided the offices of multinational companies and clashed with major trading partners. Closing the news conference will make China more isolated and less transparent to the outside world. That’s not good for the economy.
One possible reason for the cancellation is that China is facing its most serious economic challenges in decades. But the country has gone through tough times before, including the Asian financial crisis of the late 1990s and the global financial crisis of 2008. Back then Premiers had no problem communicating the country’s policies to public and the world.
At issue is how much China, under Mr. Xi’s leadership, values open communication. Media and internet censorship is the heaviest it has been in decades.
Many China observers speculated that the deadlocked news conference may have been an attempt at self-preservation by the current premier, Li Qiang. Mr. Li is the chief of staff of Mr. Xi in eastern Zhejiang Province in the 2000s and owes his position to Mr. Xi.
Since taking office in March, Mr. Li has scaled back the stature and influence of his role. He flew chartered flights instead of the equivalent of Air Force One, which he deserved, so Mr. Only Xi enjoys the status. He reduced the frequency of China’s cabinet meetings, chaired by the premier, from weekly to twice a month. His photos do not appear on website of the cabinet. They were also absent from major news portals on Tuesday when he delivered the government’s work report, an annual ceremony for the premier. As usual, the headlines and portraits of Mr. Xi dominates those sites.
Mr. Li canceled his news conference, a commentator said wrote in X, probably not because he lacks speech. “Perhaps it was because Li Qiang felt that he would be the focus of the media at the press conference, overshadowing the brilliance of the General Secretary,” the commentator wrote, referring to Mr. Xi. “He hopes to forever remain the shadow of the General Secretary.”
