Health and the Two Sessions (Pt 2 of 2): After Xi’s Recent Global CEO Summit, Who's Responsible for China's Health Agenda?

China’s 2025 health future is asking a lot of everyone. Foreign firms are welcomed, and the ageing population is recast as a "silver economy" opportunity—but these are big promises with thin margins.

🔬This Real Diagnosis series on the Two Sessions is really special. It’s truly the only place where you can find publicly available health-specific analysis on China’s most important annual political event. I’m bringing the consultancy insights I deliver for my clients, right into your inbox.

In Part 1, I unpacked the ten key health trends from this year’s Two Sessions.

Here, in Part 2, my deep dive continues: I look at the crucial forces driving those trends, and provide my predictions for what they mean for the future of China’s public and private heath services, domestic and foreign actors—as well as the very relevant context of Xi’s recent groundbreaking meeting with global pharma CEOs.

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President Xi Jinping et al., closing meeting of 3rd session, 14th National People's Congress (NPC, Great Hall of the People, Beijing, 11 March 2025. Photo Credit: Xinhua/Li Xueren

Last time, I reviewed this year’s 2025 Two Sessions and highlighted ten key health trends (see table below for a refresher). Some of these trends reinforced long-standing goals such as hospital reform, insurance restructuring, and signal China’s sustained policy commitment in these areas. Other trends consolidated newer or previously scattered priorities, such as the reframing of ageing under the “silver economy”, and the rising visibility of mental health.

The overall direction is clear: more decentralisation, greater pressure on local systems, and a growing reliance on industry and technology to fill in the gaps.

This time, I want to unpack the driving forces behind those shifts—to explore how China now sees health: what it protects, what it enables, and what it costs. Because in China’s current and uncertain economic landscape, health is now being positioned not just as a public service, but as a tool of governance, productivity and political legitimacy.

Here’s a table summarising the top 10 Health Trends from the 2025 Two Sessions: