All eyes are on the annual “two sessions” in China this week, when the central authorities are expected to address policies toward Taiwan and electoral reform in Hong Kong.

The Chinese national legislature and top political advisory body will gather between Thursday and March 11 to go through issues including economic recovery in the aftermath of the pandemic and the damaged relationship with the United States. The meetings are also expected to signal Beijing’s upcoming policies on Taiwan and Hong Kong.

A major focus will be on Chinese Premier Li Keqiang’s report on the work of the government, to be delivered on Friday.

At last year’s meeting, Li did not mention the “one China” principle or the 1992 Consensus with Taiwan. He also dropped the word “peaceful” in talking about mainland China’s push for reunification with the island, stirring heated debate. Li subsequently stressed in a conference with local and foreign media that Beijing had not changed its Taiwan policy.

A professor of a Shanghai university said that while relations across the Taiwan Strait remained tense and complicated, Beijing would continue to strive for peaceful reunification under the “one China” principle instead of making a significant departure from this policy, Taiwanese media ETtoday reported.

As a meeting in January suggested, the Communist Party of China would extend its previous policy to seek stability in cross-strait ties, East China Normal University professor Bao Chengke was cited as saying.

Another mainland Chinese academic, associate professor Li Zhenguang, said that in terms of Taiwan policy, the premier’s work reports in the previous years had been concerned with two major aspects, on opposing Taiwanese independence and promoting peaceful cross-strait development.

Beijing would likely remain aggressive on both stances, said Li, of the Institute of Taiwan Studies at Beijing Union University.

While mainland China had implemented a series of measures in the past year to intimidate independence forces on the self-ruled democratic island, the country might adjust priorities this time to refocus on its own economy and the harmonious development of society if the region remained relatively stable in the year ahead, he added.

Regarding Hong Kong, the National People’s Congress passed a motion in last year’s session to impose a national security law on the southern Chinese city. This year, the main legislative body is expected to tackle issues about Hong Kong’s electoral reform and governance by patriots, media reports suggest.

On Sunday, Xia Baolong, director of the Hong Kong and Macao Affairs Office under the State Council, said at a Shenzhen conference that the “one country, two systems” framework governing Hong Kong had not changed and would not change in the future.

At the same event, Rita Fan, a former member of the NPC Standing Committee, suggested scrapping the five “super seats” on Hong Kong’s Legislative Council, so-called because those seats commanded the biggest mandates from the city’s voters.

Fan also proposed removing district councilors from an election committee tasked with voting for the next Hong Kong chief executive, and requiring a portion of Legislative Council candidates to be nominated and selected by the same committee.

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