Whether it be skyrocketing house prices, poor healthcare or prohibitive school fees, deputies can try to create a buzz at an NPC session by submitting a briefing paper on their pet issue and hoping it will be among the 300 such papers chosen for publication and circulation at the meeting.

"Each year, hot topics emerge, and the debate attracts government attention," says Professor Cai (Dingjian). "This is a formal channel to reach the rulers, and in this sense the NPC is assuming its responsibility to represent people's opinions."

"For outsiders looking at the surface, the annual NPC meetings seem like a formality, with no substance," he adds. "But they have their political uses."

Source: China Daily