China drew Western condemnation on Friday over plans for a national security law to quash Hong Kong's pro-democracy movement as it opened an annual congress that also laid bare the "immense" economic challenges caused by the coronavirus. The 3,000-member National People's Congress (NPC) began with a minute of silence for China's victims of the coronavirus before Premier Li Keqiang delivered his annual version of the US president's "state of the union" address. "At present, the epidemic has not yet come to an end, while the tasks we face in promoting development are immense," Li told mask-wearing delegates in Beijing's cavernous Great Hall of the People, while also touting China's success in suppressing the contagion.