National People's Congress

So this location is now completely underwater here.

This dam in China was approved in 1992 by the National People's Congress with an unusually low 67.75% approval rate.

And why would that be? I don't know.

Maybe because they're going to destroy 1,300 old world sites.

Happy to be here.

Uh, so David, back in, in early March, China's National People's Congress adopted a law promoting what it calls ethnic unity and progress.

Uh, this law took effect on July 1st, and I was wondering, maybe could you tell us from a high level what is this law all about, and, you know, why is it significant?

Okay, so on the surface, you know, this law looks relatively innocuous.

Well, I think the chance is rather limited in terms of rolling out a much larger fiscal stimulus as that's not something that China used to do.

And I would think if there's any window for us to look at in terms of rolling out meaningful policy measures that could be only next year during the National People's Congress when Chinese government will announce this next year's budget, that could be another window for us to watch out for if we are talking about any additional policy support.

But of course, if the stimulus package announced this week turns out to be less efficient, there will be more pressing need for China to come up with more meaningful stimulus.

But I don't think that's something that we can expect in the near term.

Xi Jinping, he knows what he wants.

He doesn't want any disturbance before the big People's Congress that's coming up that is gonna elect in, in the fall next year, that is gonna elect new members of the Central Committee.

He wants quiet.

He wants stability.

Something everyday New Zealanders complain about, though, is the flip-flopping of politics, so to speak, and the lack of long-term strategic vision, which is something that is needed when looking at large infrastructure projects, especially in the energy space.

For example, in March this year the National People's Congress, uh, approved 15 five-year plan to kind of guide China year '26 through to 2030.

Rather than speaking on the strategic plan, I think what would be really interesting is to understand maybe how some of the high level strategic direction ends up playing out for you at Magna China at a company level, and kind of how that might influence some of the company level decisions.

Because one thing in New Zealand I don't think, other than Alistair and a few others, I don't think we have many New Zealanders that can really read the tea leaves, so to speak, of how that high level direction ends up playing out on the ground.

A- and to, and to that point, we, we really haven't seen any stabilization, and we haven't seen the State Council of China bring forward any more concrete measures.

And a part of that might be that this is something they may wait till next year till, d- you know, in, in their larger National People's Congress in March.

So I think it's something we just gotta wait out and hold o- hold out for whilst the market's still very focused on, on, uh, on the AI trade.

So before I let you go, we know that inflation globally is still a persistent problem.

All the while, Guojun was getting into local politics.

He was eventually named a deputy to the People's Congress for Xinjiang.

The role was kind of equivalent to that of a state representative in the US.

During his five-year term, Guojun was known for proposing more legislation than any of his peers.