Xiaohua: Hello and welcome to Round Table’s ‘Word of the Week.’ 欢迎来到RoundTable的词汇小百科栏目。And today, we’re gonna talk about the Two Sessions 两会, since it’s on going.

John: This is, as most of you already know, the NPC and CPPCC convenes their annual sessions. So NPC is the National People’s Congress. That’s kind of like the legislature. And the CPPCC is the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, more like an advisory body with no legislative power.

Xiaohua: NPC, National People’s Congress是全国人民代表大会. CPPCC Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference则是全国人民政治协商会议. But when we talk about the Two Sessions, why are we using ‘sessions’ to represent ‘会’, but not ‘conference’ or ‘meetings’ which to many Chinese mean the same.

John: Right. So a session just means that people are all sitting down and doing something all together. A class can be a session. There could be a tutoring session or something like that.

Xiaohua: Also, 代表和委员的区别。因为我们说人大代表，但是却说政协委员。在英文中这两个词是怎么说的呢？

John: So, yeah, we have NPC deputy, and there is the CPPCC member. This has everything to do with the fact that NPC is a legislative body that has the power to create and approve laws; whereas CPPCC is just an advisory body. So you are a MEMBER of an advisory body, but you are a DEUTY of a legislature.

Xiaohua: That’s right. 全国人民大会是我国最高的立法机构。政协则是政治协商机构，不具有直接立法的权力的。That also leads me to my next question. That is those “提案” and “议案” that these deputies and members submit. What are their differences in English?

John: Right. So again, as the deputy of the NPC legislature, these deputies raise motions, that is how the legislative process is conducted. CPPCC members, again, because they are only part of the advisory body, they are there to reflect, you know, the opinion of the people and give suggestions. They can really raise proposals.

Xiaohua: 人大代表提出的motion，已经通过就会具有法律效力，变成law。而政协委员提交上来的议案，proposal，不管是否通过，都不具有法律的约束力。So, a lot of media reports are saying that the structure of these two sessions is not completely the same, but a little bit similar, or comparable to the US house and senate, and the two houses of Parliament in Britain.

John: Yeah. I mean really it’s just a bicameral legislature. Bicameral just means that it has two different departments. And so I think the biggest difference of course is that in the US, both the US Senate and the House of Representatives have the power to create and enact laws. The thing is they have to agree upon a law before it can actually be enacted. Whereas in the UK with their Parliament, they have the House of Commons and the House of Lords. And at this point, the House of Lords is kind of similar to the CPPCC in some senses, where they really don’t have that much power to create laws. They have a little bit of power, but not that much. Really most of the laws, decisions about policies are created in the House of Commons.

Xiaohua: 其实这些国家的政体还是具有挺大的区别的。比如说美国的参议院和众议院都有立法权，并且法案必须在两院都得到通过以后才能变成法律。而英国的上院和下院，上院实际上没多少立法权，而下院，the House of Commons，反而拥有更大的立法权力。OK. That’s all we have for this edition of Word of the Week.

John: Thanks for listening!