A scene in a nearly empty shopping area in Beijing last week.
Photo: Kevin Frayer/Getty ImagesChina plans to postpone an annual political conclave originally scheduled for early March, setting back a showpiece event for demonstrating Communist Party authority as officials scramble to contain a coronavirus outbreak that has shaken confidence in President Xi Jinping’s rule.
State media said Monday that senior officials at China’s national legislature and a related government-advisory body have proposed delaying their annual meetings in Beijing, which would have drawn some 5,000 delegates from across the country for a roughly two-week gathering.
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Known locally as the “Two Sessions,” the meetings are largely set pieces of political theater, where the Communist Party elite projects an air of national unity and outlines its policy priorities for the coming year.
This year, uncertainty has loomed over the meetings as the outbreak of the virus, which causes a respiratory disease called Covid-19, sickened more than 70,000 people and claimed more than 1,770 lives. Mr. Xi has declared a “people’s war” against the disease, calling on officials and ordinary citizens to spare no effort in containing the epidemic.
Top officials at the National People’s Congress, China’s legislature, believe postponing their annual session is necessary for ensuring that the proper focus is kept on fighting the epidemic and safeguarding public health and safety, according to Zang Tiewei, a spokesman for the legislature’s legal-affairs committee.
Many congressional deputies are regional and local officials who play important front-line roles in China’s efforts to contain the epidemic, Mr. Zang said in remarks carried by the official Xinhua News Agency.
The delay would mark the first time since 1995 that China hasn’t started the annual sessions of its national legislature and advisory body in the first week of March. Postponing the meetings would help Mr. Xi avoid potential criticism from attendees about the Communist Party’s handling of the epidemic, according to China politics watchers.
As public debate simmers over perceived government missteps during the early stages of the outbreak, “delegates may raise awkward questions about responsibility and accountability,” said Zhang Lifan, an independent historian in Beijing.
Delaying the meetings would buy time for Mr. Xi to unify China’s political elite around a common message on the crisis and its fallout, while reducing the risk of the disease spreading among delegates and reaching the innermost circles of power, Mr. Zhang said.
The two sessions have in the past allowed delegates—comprising officials, businesspeople and other political notables—to debate policy and, to some extent, vent critical views. But as Mr. Xi ramped up efforts to squelch dissent, recent editions have been reduced to little more than displays of loyalty to the Chinese leader and his agenda.
For instance, two years ago, Mr. Xi used the congressional meeting to scrap term limits on his presidency, eliminating a check against lifelong rule and firmly establishing himself as China’s most powerful ruler since Mao Zedong, amid virtually unanimous praise from delegates.
Mr. Xi’s leadership has since come under fire from some within China’s political and business elite, who have accused him of concentrating too much power in his hands and mishandling a slowdown in the world’s second-largest economy, a bruising trade war with the U.S. and anti-Beijing protests in the semiautonomous city of Hong Kong.
The Covid-19 outbreak, which emerged in the central Chinese city of Wuhan late last year, has fueled more discontent. Many ordinary Chinese feel directly threatened by the outbreak, and some have questioned why Mr. Xi has been largely absent from the front lines of the “people’s war” he says he is leading. Mr. Xi sent his titular No. 2, Premier Li Keqiang, to visit Wuhan in late January.
In an apparent response to such criticism, Mr. Xi has sought to emphasize his personal role in directing the government response. Last week, Mr. Xi visited a Beijing hospital treating infected patients and a local disease-control office, after weeks of remaining largely out of public view.
Over the weekend, state media took the unusual step of publishing remarks that Mr. Xi made at a Feb. 3 meeting of the Communist Party’s top leadership, where he said he had issued instructions on the government’s response to the epidemic in early January—nearly two weeks before he first spoke publicly about the outbreak and while local officials in Wuhan were still playing down its severity.
It isn’t clear when the sessions of the National People’s Congress and the advisory body will be convened. The planned rescheduling comes amid widespread uncertainty around China when school classes and businesses can be expected to resume normal operations.
A meeting of the National People's Congress in March 2019 in Beijing.
Photo: Huang Jingwen/xinhua/Zuma PressMr. Zang, the legislative official, said delays to the annual congressional session require approval from senior lawmakers, who state media said would convene next week to discuss the proposed postponement, as well as to review proposed legislation to tighten restrictions on the trade and consumption of wildlife—practices that scientists believe helped the new coronavirus leap from animals to humans.
Top officials at the advisory body Monday also discussed delaying their annual meeting, state media said, without elaborating. China politics watchers say such deliberations are procedural formalities.
Officials have said the Covid-19 outbreak appears to have stemmed from a Wuhan food market that offered carcasses and live specimens of dozens of wild animals—from bamboo rats to ostriches, baby crocodiles and hedgehogs.
Chinese authorities have continued stepping up epidemic controls. Officials in Shanghai began barring passengers without masks from taking the city’s buses or taxis, in an attempt to stop the virus’s spread in the country’s main financial center.
China’s central bank on Monday cut a key interest rate in another move to support the ailing economy.
In Macau, a semiautonomous Chinese city that is the world’s biggest casino market, authorities said they would reopen its casinos for business on Thursday, after shutting them down earlier this month amid coronavirus concerns.
The city said it is working with casino companies to prepare for reopening, according to a government statement. It said everyone will be required to take their temperature and wear a mask before entering a casino.
And in Taiwan, health authorities Sunday reported the self-ruled island’s first death from the coronavirus.
—Joyu Wang contributed to this article.
Write to Chun Han Wong at chunhan.wong@wsj.com
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