China’s legislative body, the National People’s Congress, started its annual meeting on March 5. The gathering of nearly 3,000 representatives will continue through March 15. The Congress itself is largely ceremonial, serving mainly to rubber stamp policy decisions made by China’s Communist Party and its Politburo Standing Committee led by its president, Xi Jinping. The conference kicked off with an announcement by Premier Li Keqiang, who said that in response to slowing economic growth, the government is targeting lower GDP growth than in 2018. “In pursuing development this year, we will face a graver and more complicated environment as well as risks and challenges, foreseeable and otherwise, that are greater in number and size,” Li told the conference. “We must be fully prepared for a tough struggle,” he said. The announcement comes during a protracted trade war with the U.S., started by President Donald Trump when he increased tariffs on Chinese imports. We’ll get analysis from Wen Huang, an independent journalist and writer. He’s author of the books The Little Red Guard and A Death in the Lucky Holiday Hotel: Murder, Money and an Epic Power Struggle in China.