Xiaohua: Hello and welcome to Round Table’s ‘Word of the Week.’ 歡迎來到RoundTable的詞匯小百科欄目。And today, we’re gonna talk about the Two Sessions 兩會, 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是全國人民代表大會. CPPCC Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference則是全國人民政治協商會議. But when we talk about the Two Sessions, why are we using ‘sessions’ to represent ‘會’, 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, 代表和委員的區別。因為我們說人大代表，但是卻說政協委員。在英文中這兩個詞是怎么說的呢？

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. 全國人民大會是我國最高的立法機構。政協則是政治協商機構，不具有直接立法的權力的。That also leads me to my next question. That is those “提案” and “議案” 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，已經通過就會具有法律效力，變成law。而政協委員提交上來的議案，proposal，不管是否通過，都不具有法律的約束力。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: 其實這些國家的政體還是具有挺大的區別的。比如說美國的參議院和眾議院都有立法權，并且法案必須在兩院都得到通過以后才能變成法律。而英國的上院和下院，上院實際上沒多少立法權，而下院，the House of Commons，反而擁有更大的立法權力。OK. That’s all we have for this edition of Word of the Week.

John: Thanks for listening!