China’s annual convening of the National People’s Congress and the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference is usually described as “the meeting of China’s parliament” in the Western media and as the “Two Meetings” (两会) in the Chinese media.
The event is a source of frustration for journalists who have to cover it, because it’s essentially a rubber stamp affair where nothing exciting happens. It’s also a bit a bore for the delegates who attend the meetings, as illustrated by the photo on the left of sleeping NPC delegates. Which is why the most interesting reporting to come out of the annual snoozefest is usually of the ‘weird news’ variety.
Such as this Reuters story:
Smoking curb could “upset China stability”
China’s stability could be threatened if the government tried to curb smoking, a senior official said on Wednesday at a discussion of the annual meeting of parliament.
“Smoking harms people’s health, but restraining smoking threatens social stability,” said Zhang Baozhen, deputy chief of the State Tobacco Monopoly Administration.
“Smokers rioted when the former Soviet Union collapsed because they could not get any cigarettes… The principle applies in China as well,” Zhang said, responding to proposals from some members of China’s parliamentary advisory body to curtail the smoking industry.
“As a developing country, China still needs the tobacco industry,” Zhang said…
The tobacco industry contributed 80 billion yuan ($10.33 billion) per day in tax to the country last year, Zhang said.
…”With the development of modern technology, we can reduce the harm of smoking by lowering the toxic ingredients in cigarettes,” the official said.
There’s an opinion piece in response to this on Sina.com (in Chinese), in which the author says that the talk of threatening social stability is nonsense, because it was not an outright ban being proposed, but rather curbs on availability of cigarettes and public places where they may be smoked.
UPDATE:As pointed out in the comments, the number quoted above for tax revenues from cigarettes in China — 80 billion yuan ($10.33 billion) per day — seems highly improbable.