Here is a nice Bloomberg report noting the decline of dissenting votes in China’s National People’s Congress (NPC) since Xi Jinping’s ascendance.
In a China Quarterly article written right after the 1978 Constitution’s appearance, China's Changing Constitution, I predicted that the then dormant NPC might not always remain dormant. Gradually, especially beginning in the ‘90s, the NPC came to enjoy considerable life as open struggles developed over important economic legislation such as the Company Law, Securities Law and Labor Law. I came to believe that the journalists’ favorite term for the NPC - “China’s rubber-stamp legislature” – was no longer accurate.
Moreover, the votes on various annual work reports permitted legislators to register their dissatisfaction and criticisms of how the laws were being administered. The number of votes after each report, including those by the Supreme People’s Court and the Supreme People’s Procuratorate, were at least a modest indication of the growth of intra-Party democracy and the seeds of possible legislative independence of the Executive, the Courts and the Procuracy, branches of government that the Legislature in theory is supposed to control.
Since Xi Jinping’s ascendance and particularly today, it is clear that the Party has brought the Legislature to heel as part of Xi’s drive to subject all institutions, including government, the media, the legal profession and civil society, to the Party’s unbending will as he interprets it.