Beijing Stories

They sound like a Chinese Communist's worst nightmare. The China Democratic League, the China Association for Promoting Democracy, and, worst of all, the China Peasants and Workers Democratic Party, the very constituents the Communists claim to represent. And last week all were mingling in the corridors of Beijing's Great Hall of the People.

But the reality ensures that sweet dreams go undisturbed. Representatives from eight "democratic parties" active before the Communists took power in 1949 are wheeled out each year for the pantomime that is the National People's Congress (NPC), China's "parliament", and its advisory body, a Chinese equivalent of the House of Lords. Their presence among some 5,000 dozing delegates (including President Jiang Zemin himself, below) maintains the fiction of multi-party co-operation, under the unquestioned leadership of the Communist Party.

To witness stage-management of the old school, I went down to the Great Hall of the People, a Stalinist palace to rival the Ming dynasty Forbidden City nearby. Beneath a giant red star in the tiered splendour of the Ten Thousand People Assembly Hall, the grey ranks of People's Deputies were enlivened only by the colourful garb of smiling ethnic minorities.

"Elected" from across China through a secretive process involving a fraction of the 1.3 billion citizens, deputies may be unknown to the masses, but they know how to sing their masters' praises. Even though most of the fortnight is behind closed doors, the outcome of their deliberations is not in doubt.

Still, mingling with the delegates offers a few clues to the health of the nation. Over a background chorus of mobile phones, representatives from the north-eastern "rustbelt" worry about workers laid off by shrinking state-owned enterprises. Entrepreneurs from Shanghai and the southern provinces seek guarantees for private enterprise. Poor farming provinces fret about the fallout of globalisation.

"I am a spokesman for the poor workers," boasts Kong Linghong, a miner from Inner Mongolia who owes his only suit to his city mayor, not his meagre salary. "And I will fully utilise the law and the sacred authority bestowed by the people to get their voice heard." Other delegates are perhaps more representative of a system corrupt to its core. "There is a good and cheap buffet at the Great Hall of the People," a government adviser told me. "But they all go to expensive restaurants to entertain central government officials."

* I looked in vain for a free haircut last week. Tuesday was "Learn from Lei Feng Day", when work units across China dispatch volunteers to cut hair and mend bicycles, in the spirit of model soldier Lei Feng, the "rustless screw" of Mao's revolution. But capitalism is a more selfish creed. These days, workers and students prefer visiting Lei Feng websites, 100 and rising, to performing any physical chores.

At least the army is still trying. At the NPC, Major Wang Xian, proud holder of a "Learn from Lei Feng Gold Medal", introduced a campaign to use Lei and other martyrs to promote ethics and civic virtues. But another delegate showed a better feel for the times by proposing a socialist medal for private business. No irony was intended.

On Wednesday I picked up some cheap lingerie, thanks to International Women's Day. This might be ignored in the West, but China uses it to promote women – not into leadership positions, but as models of grace and style. The saintly Lei Feng, who dreamed only of Mao, would faint at the discounted underwear flooding the forecourts of countless department stores.