After 1956, when China's socialist transformation finished, the country's population was categorized into the three social strata of workers, peasants and cadres (including intellectuals). The cadres were later included in the working-class category.

Under the limits of the centrally planned economic system and the system of strict residence registration, people rarely had a chance to change their social stratum.

A ratio was set on how many representatives each social stratum should have in the congress, according to the population of the different strata.

Thanks to the dramatic changes that have taken place since the late 1970s, however, the old practice of categorizing people according to their political status, administrative title and residence registration (in urban or rural areas) no longer reflects the country's conditions.

Great changes have taken place in the stratum of farmers. Many have abandoned the land and are no longer engaged in farming.

The concept of workers has been extended to include not only those working in traditional industries but also those in the high-tech and service sectors and to include not only urban workers but also farmers who have migrated to the cities.

More importantly, economic and social development has nurtured new social strata, such as the self-employed, private entrepreneurs and managers of non-government enterprises.

To reflect such changes in social strata, the composition of congress deputies should be readjusted to ensure that each social stratum has an appropriate number of representatives in the highest organ of State power.

The old practice of roughly dividing deputies into the six groups of workers, farmers, cadres, intellectuals, People's Liberation Army personnel and returned overseas Chinese is outdated and fails to reflect social changes.

Our research showed that deputies to the Ninth National People's Congress (1998-2002) could be placed into nine groups: farming, mining and manufacturing, commerce and the service sector, State-owned organs, enterprise management, technical and freelance professions, People's Liberation Army and People's Armed Police, the self-employed, and others.

Under the new standards for counting deputies, those from State-owned organs make up an excessive proportion, hitting almost 50 per cent. In some provinces and autonomous regions, the ratio even exceeds 60 per cent.

The proportion of deputies from the grassroots and the front line of agriculture, industry and commerce is even smaller, as they account for only 5.27 per cent combined.

The contingent of the self-employed has been expanding but there were only three self-employed deputies to the ninth congress, less than 0.1 per cent of the total.

Such a structure of deputies weakens the representativeness of the congress.

In a sense, the congress almost becomes a three-level conference of government officials, which prevents it from playing its due role well, especially the role of supervising the work of the State Council, the Supreme People's Court and the Supreme People's Procuratorate.

China is an agriculture-dominated country. Shortly after the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949, the rural population accounted for 87.5 per cent of the total.

The first Electoral Law implemented in 1953 thus set different ratios for the agricultural and industrial populations for electing deputies. In the election of deputies to the First National People's Congress in 1954, industrial cities could elect one deputy per 100,000 of their population. For each province, one deputy represented 800,000 people.

The 1979 amendment to the Electoral Law went further by stipulating that the population represented by a rural deputy should be eight times that represented by an urban deputy.

Deputies to the sixth congress were elected under such a ratio. There was one deputy per 130,000 urban residents, but also only one for every 1.04 million rural people.

The 1995 amendment to the Electoral Law shrank the ratio from 8:1 to 4:1.

With the acceleration of industrialization and urbanization in the past few decades, especially in the two decades since China's reform drive was launched, such a ratio is obviously inappropriate.

With barriers that strictly limited mobility being eradicated, farmers have been transferred to other occupations on a large scale. This means that many people, though still registered as farmers, are no longer engaged in farming.

The huge gap between the rural and urban populations is being patched up.

The old ratio system has resulted in the proportion of farmer deputies to the congress being comparatively small -- for the ninth congress, it was 8.06 per cent.

The quota difference for deputies representing the rural and urban populations should be further narrowed and eventually eliminated.

The ultimate goal is to have each deputy represent basically the same size of population, thus achieving equal rights for people from different social strata.

As an expedient measure, the quota of deputies for each province and autonomous region should be readjusted in line with their general population and changes in the rural population.

China's population is unevenly distributed across the country. In the longer term, to ensure that provinces and autonomous regions with smaller populations can be better represented, including the Hong Kong and Macao special administrative regions, deputies of each region should be based on a basic number that is the same for all provinces and autonomous regions, plus an additional number of deputies according to the actual population of the province or region.

Today, the system of direct elections is still confined to the grassroots, under county level. Direct elections make deputies accountable for their electoral districts, thus enhancing their sense of responsibility and strengthening voters' supervision of them.

However, the conditions are not yet ripe for the universal adoption of direct elections due to unbalanced economic and social development. It is feasible to begin studies into and experiments on direct elections in developed big cities.

The system should eventually be promoted nationwide.

Between the first congress and the ninth, the number of deputies has ranged from 1,226 to 3,500. From the sixth congress, the number has been basically stable at between 2,900 and 3,000.

The experience of the past decades indicates that a congress of 3,000 deputies is still oversized.

The Chinese Constitution stipulates that the Congress must hold one ordinary annual session, in addition to any emergency session. So far, there has been no emergency session. Each ordinary session lasts between 10 and 15 days.

The excessive number of deputies makes it difficult to extend the session for a longer period or to hold more regular sessions throughout the year.

The large number of deputies also makes it inconvenient to hold discussions and debates in the plenary sessions, which are usually devoted to listening to reports and casting votes. Debates are usually held in panel sessions.

Deputies on different panels have to exchange opinions via conference bulletins, which affects the results of examinations on proposals and reports.

Furthermore, the large number of deputies has inflated the cost of the annual conference.

Further studies are needed to set an appropriate size for the number of deputies.

The practice of previous deputy elections has given too much consideration to special groups, such as ethnic minorities and overseas Chinese. This has proved to be an important factor in the ballooning number of deputies.

To limit the number of deputies and ensure their quality, preferential treatment to special groups should be reduced and eventually eliminated.

Army personnel should no longer elect deputies as a separate unit. They should be incorporated into the general population of electors in the regions where they are located.

Candidates from the non-Communist parties, ethnic minorities and overseas Chinese should no longer be guaranteed election.

Yin Zhongqing is the deputy director-general of the Congressional Research Service of the National People's Congress Standing Committee. Shi Zujun is a researcher with the service.

(China Daily June 24, 2003)