As the 2,296 delegates from across the country meet in Beijing for the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC), media, commentators, and the public are watching to see how the Party will govern and who will lead it for the next five years. First held in 1921, and then roughly every five years since the 1970s, the Congress is where promotions are made, reshuffles carried out, and retirements confirmed, as CPC reveals its next top members and lays out broad priorities for governance.
It is also a chance to reflect on the changes and development of the previous five years since the Party last gathered. Since 2017’s 19th Congress, China has seen monumental changes: From the removal of the two-child policy to coping with the coronavirus pandemic, from a booming livestream industry to regulating tech companies, from milk tea mania to anti-food waste campaigns. Here, we visualize some of the ways Chinese society has evolved over the last five years.
Infographic by Nicoco Chan
Sources
China Internet Network Information Center
Income Growth, National Bureau of Statistics, October 11, 2022
“China’s Demographics: It Gets Worse,” Forbes, October 12, 2022
“China’s ’Lipstick King’ named as one of the Top 100 Most Influential People,” Februray 28, 2021
“China maps path to carbon peak, neutrality under new development philosophy,” State Council of the People’s Republic of China, October 24, 2021
“China to keep large-scale railway construction in next five years: NPC deputy,” People’s Daily, March 10, 2021
“Chinese panda park to be twice the size of Yellowstone,” The Guardian, March 8, 2018
“Collection of Urban Rail Transit Lines Ready for Operation In 2022 (2022即将开通城市轨道交通线路汇总),” rail-stdaily.com, May 25, 2022
Douban
“Five National Parks Unveiled in China,” China Daily, October 13, 2021.
“Sports and Fitness Industry Report: Outlook on the Key Trends of Fitness 3.0 Era (体育健身行业专题报告：健身3.0时代的核心趋势展望),” June 9, 2022
“Taobao Live – Live Streaming Driving Massive Profits,” GMA, June 27, 2022
“The length of China’s railways increased by 50% and exceeded 150 thousand km in 10 years,” September 23, 2022
“The MOE: The Number of University Graduates of 2022 Is Estimated to be 10.76 Million, 1.67 Million More than That of Last Year (教育部:2022届高校毕业生规模预计1076万人,同比增加167万),” December 28, 2021
“The 5 billionaires competing to be China’s richest woman: from Country Garden’s Yang Huiyan to Zhou Qunfei, whose tech start-up supplies Apple, Samsung and Huawei,” South China Morning Post, May 10, 2021
“They hold up half the sky: six of every 10 of the world’s self-made, women billionaires are in China,” SCMP, October 26, 2017
“Two-thirds of world’s self-made female billionaires in China,” China Daily, May 19, 2021
“Urban Rail Transit Lines are put into Operation in 34 cities as of the End of 2017 (截至2017年底中国34个城市开通轨道交通并投入运营),” cinic.org, April 12, 2018
“3.438482 Billion Covid-19 Vaccine Doses Administered in 31 Provinces (31省份累计报告接种新冠病毒疫苗343848.2万剂次),” October 19, 2022.
“2021 IQAir World Air Quality Report: 66% of Chinese Cities Improved Air Quality,” China Daily, March 29, 2022.
“China Meets Greening Targets, Adds 689 Million Mu of Green Space During 13th Five-Year Plan Period,” the State Council Information Office of the People’s Republic of China, December 17, 2020.
“Ten-Year Fishing Ban on Yangtze River Begins on January 1, 2021,” Chongqing Municipal Commission of Agricultural and Rural Affairs, January 5, 2021.
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