New faces meet media on red carpet

For years, a long red carpet in a side corridor of the Great Hall of the People in the heart of Beijing has been the hall's most bustling place during the annual two sessions.

Hundreds of journalists, toting cameras with lenses of various lengths, arrive more than an hour before the start of news conferences to secure good positions.

The carpet has long been known as "ministers' passage" because it's where high-level officials meet with reporters and answer questions.

At this year's two sessions, which opened in Beijing on Saturday, journalists will see new characters on the carpet: national legislators and political advisers.

Before the first session of the 13th National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference opened at 3 pm on Saturday, 11 national political advisers met with reporters on the carpet for a total of 40 minutes.

The increase of different characters entering the spotlight on the carpet has shown the increasing openness of the two sessions and a more confident China, according to spokesmen and national political advisers.

He Shaoren, head of publicity for the National People's Congress, said the legislators' passage will let deputies share their insights.

Wang Xiangwei, head of publicity of the CPPCC National Committee, said the establishment of the legislators' and advisers' passages "has shown the international status of China as a more and more open, transparent and confident country."

There will be two more advisers' passages, on March 10 and 15, he said.

Li Xinmin, a member of the 13th CPPCC National Committee, said he highly welcomes the advisers' passage, since it "offers a good platform for grassroots national political advisers like me to show their images".

Li, also head of the Daqing Oilfield of China National Petroleum Corp's branch in the Middle East, said that if he has the opportunity to meet the media at the passage, he will show to the world "a confident image of a Chinese national political adviser" and "tell reporters words from my heart as an industrial worker".

Party delegates also showed up on the carpet to be interviewed during the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China in October.

Xu Qijin, a member of the 13th CPPCC National Committee, was one of the Party delegates interviewed on the carpet during the 19th National Congress.

"The setting of these passages showed an increasingly confident China," said Xu, a worker of State Grid Corp of China's branch in Suzhou, Anhui province. "China has been great in economic growth and fast in development. We are full of confidence to show to the world our strength."

Aitizaz Hassan, a journalist from Dawn TV in Pakistan who came to the two sessions for the first time, said that though the language barrier prevented him from asking questions in the passage on Saturday, he and his colleagues will try at a later time.