by Wang Zhicheng

The mainland's second-richest man, Zong Qinghou, worth more than US 10 billion, and the country's richest woman, Wu Yajun, with almost US$ 7 billion in personal assets, are among the delegates. By comparison, China's average annual income is around US$ 2,400. The NPC adopts laws against pollution and land grabs but fails to implement them or bring to justice those of its members that break the law. Faced with growing social unrest, outgoing PM Wen Jiabao has called for political reforms. Instead, the answer so far has been tighter controls and more money for the military.

Beijing (AsiaNews) - China's parliament, the National People's Congress (NPC), begins its annual session on 5 March in the capital. The mass gathering of 3,000 representatives in the Great Hall of the People, which is located on Tiananmen Square, is often deemed useless because the NPC simply rubberstamps what the Politburo has already decided. Yet, every year, the body comes across less as the 'people's congress and more as a club for crass billionaires.

According to the Hurun Research Institute, which measures China's wealth, the 70 richest delegates in China's National People's Congress saw their worth rise to 565.8 billion yuan (US$ 89.8 billion) in 2011. They include Zong Qinghou, chairman of beverage-maker Hangzhou Wahaha Group (HWGZ) and China's second-richest person, with a family fortune of 68 billion yuan, and Wu Yajun, chairwoman of Beijing-based Longfor Properties (LHREZ) Co and China's richest woman, whose family wealth stands at 42 billion yuan.

Considering that the average annual income in China is around 15,000 yuan (or about US$ 2.400), any comparison with the wealth of certain NPC delegates explains the deep frustration felt in the country over the huge gap between rich and poor.

Underlying this frustration is a sense of injustice, not envy. Ordinary Chinese see their country get richer and richer, but very little of the new wealth is trickling down. They see their land stolen to benefit real estate speculators or turned into industrial plants and warehouses. They see that 70 per cent of their rivers and lakes have become polluted and that, increasingly, the air they breathe is unbreathable, causing the death of half a million people a year due to respiratory diseases.

All this is happening thanks to the NPC, which adopts laws but stops the courts from (in theory) bringing delegates to justice. Examples abound.

In 2008, the PNC adopted a labour law that imposed a minimum wage and required companies to stipulate contracts with workers as well as provide retirement and health care benefits. No sooner was it approved that implementation was delayed.

In 2006, another law stipulated that companies must pay to clean up their pollution, but so far, it has had no effect. The air continues to be as unbreathable as ever and every year thousands of children continue to suffer from lead or cadmium poisoning.

In 2000, Jiang Zemin formulated the theory of the "three representations" whereby the Communist Party of China represents the advanced social productive forces, advanced culture, and the interests of the overwhelming majority.

This has allowed China's big capitalists to join the Communist party and Communist ideology to embrace unfettered capitalism, with the backing of the state providing.

"The prevalence of billionaires in the NPC shows the cosy relationship between the wealthy and the Communist Party," Bruce Jacobs, a professor of Asian languages and studies at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia, told Bloomberg. "In all levels of the system there seem to be local officials in cahoots with entrepreneurs, enriching themselves, and this has led to a lot of the demonstrations."

According to Security Ministry data, at least 180,000 mass incidents were recorded in 2010. They include riots, strikes and clashes with police and the authorities, with dead and wounded on both sides.

The NPC can deal with social unrest two ways. The first one comes from outgoing Prime Minister Wen Jiabao who has called for political reforms (from behind the scene) to empower people, end to land and other property grabs at the expense of farmers and city residents. The second one is the one used so far, namely ever tighter controls.

Studies are currently underway to find better ways to control the Internet and social networks like Twitter so as to nip in the bud any potential Chinese-styled 'Arab revolution'.

The People's Liberation Army is also expected to get more money. China's defence budget is set to double between 2011 and 2015 to reach 1.5 trillion yuan (US$ 232.5 billion).

• china
• national
• people’s
• congress
• annual
• session
• defence
• spending
• billionaires