Li Bin, vice-chairwoman and secretary-general of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), attended the third meeting of the third Council of the CPPCC Theory Research Association in Shaoxing, East China's Zhejiang province on Nov 25 and 26.

Li, also president of the research association, called for a thorough study and implementation of the spirit of the Sixth Plenary Session of the 19th CPC Central Committee, which adopted a landmark resolution that stressed valuable historical experience in 10 aspects. Forming a system of consultative democracy with Chinese characteristics was one of them, which read: "We have stepped up institutional development in promoting the CPPCC's role as a specialized consultative body, advanced extensive, multilevel, and institutionalized development of socialist consultative democracy, and put in place a system of consultative democracy with Chinese characteristics."

More efforts are needed to give full play to the unique role of consultative democracy in building the whole-process people's democracy and leverage the institutional strengths of the CPPCC to improve China's governance system and capacity, said Li, who also called for a focus on quality in the CPPCC theoretical research.

The meeting received 254 research papers and held discussions on various topics, including building a broad consensus, the role of the CPPCC in the whole-process people's democracy, and performance of CPPCC members in the new era.