Theme of China's congress: Making economy work for 1.3 billion

If there is an overall theme for this year's gathering of 3,000 lawmakers in the heart of Beijing it must be the challenge of making the economy work to the benefit of all 1.3 billion Chinese.
There is only so much laws can do to stem this sort of development, but even so the struggle to prevent the rich-poor divide widening further will be reflected in the legislation of the coming years, observers said.
The quest for fairness shows in two laws legislators are being asked to review, and eventually approve at the end of the ongoing session -- the Property Law and the Corporate Income Tax Law.
"All players have equal status in the market, enjoy the same rights, observe the same rules and bear the same responsibilities," said Yin Tian, a professor at Peking University.
The Corporate Income Tax Law invokes some of the same principles of fairness, according to observers.
"They have to be treated equally now, given that China has opened nearly all its markets to foreign players," said Liu Jinyong, a professor at Beijing's University of International Business and Economics.
" The two laws show that Chinese society is developing in the direction of more fairness said Zhang Jun, an economist at Shanghai's Fudan University.