BEIJING, Mar. 3 -- Coal miner and alcoholic Li Weiqing has some advice for members and deputies arriving in Beijing for the start today of the 2005 plenary session of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) and annual session of the National People's Congress (NPC) tomorrow.

    "It will be good if the people at the top make really strong, enforced policies to protect us at the bottom, like us coal miners," he says.

    Li digs coals at a mine in Huaibei of East China's Anhui Province. He is seeking help for his drinking problem an addiction not uncommon among miners who risk their lives on a daily basis to keep the country running.

    "One has to be tough to lead the life of a miner, and sometimes alcohol helps," he says, adding that he and his colleagues toil in ever increasing fear and dread whenever news of another mining tragedy reaches them.

    Li's prayer for a safer work place underground is echoed by those working above ground, too. A fairer society with enforceable laws to ensure safety and equality are on the majority of want lists. It has been announced the NPC deputies and CPPCC members will discuss how to tackle China's social problems including unemployment, work safety in production and narrowing the gap between rich and poor. Building a society in which all live in harmony with their rights protected is high on the public and government's agenda.

    Li Jinyin, a masseuse working at a small hair salon in Beijing, says she wishes for a society in which she can move upward, a country where through her own efforts she can realize her ambitions. "I want to live in an apartment of my own," says the migrant worker from Dalian of Northeast China's Liaoning Province. The 27-year-old pays 400 yuan (US$48) a month rent to share a cramped 18-square-metre basement room with three other young women migrants.

    She also expects an economic revival in her hometown which is part of China's old industrial heartland. "I won't stay in Beijing if I can find a job that pays more than 600 yuan (US$73) a month in Dalian. To be uprooted from my hometown brings a lot of problems. Like many young women around me, I cannot find someone appropriate to marry in Bei-jing," she says.

    Yang Weimin, a 67-year-old farmer in Xiangxiang of Central China's Hunan Province, says he struggles to pay more than 300 yuan (US$36) a month a large part of his income on medicine. He wants government help for himself and for others in his village. Such sentiments are echoed nationwide.

    Zhen Lidan, who runs a small business in Beijing, said he expects topics like the real estate developers' abuse of power over consumers to be discussed.

    "I made complaints to developers and they replied: 'It's not your place to talk about such things. Go to Renda (the People's Congress),'" he says.

    The growing number of ex-pats working in China also expressed their views ahead of today's opening of the session.

    A New Yorker who has lived in Beijing for six years, said: "I think if the leadership puts a new emphasis on social harmony that could be quite good for the country and its administrators. I think the best leaders in Chinese history ruled in part through Confucian notions of harmony."

    He added: "I think it's an especially good policy now because the pace of change in China is so fast that it is probably hard for some people to adjust. Some may feel alienated."

    
(Source: China Daily)