Editor’s note for Thursday, March 4, 2021

My thoughts today:

“China’s rubber-stamp parliament” is how China’s annual Two Sessions is often glossed in media reports. I wish I could tell you that it was more nuanced than that, but as government proposals and draft laws are almost never turned down, the cliché remains a good description.

Chinese state media does not agree, however, and this year has found some fancy new ways of referring to what happens in Beijing every March, which provide our words of the day:

Socialist democracy with Chinese characteristics: 中国特色社会主义民主 zhōngguó tèsè shèhuìzhǔyì mínzhǔ

Substantial democracy: 实质民主 shízhì mínzhǔ

Whether you think the Two Sessions are an exercise in democracy or not, we’ll be covering them every day — the proceedings may be predictably boring, but Xí Jìnpíng 习近平 and his Communist Party will send some important political messages.

We’ll be listening, and taking notes.

It’s Women’s History Month, and today I’d like to draw your attention, if you don’t know about it already, to the NüVoices directory of more than 600 female experts on Greater China in a huge range of fields from history to politics, from Africa-China relations to health policy.

—Jeremy Goldkorn, Editor-in-Chief