Chinese Parliament

This is a continuation of my RTW diary from November 2003.

After wandering round Tian’anmen for a while, I walked into The Forbidden City, which was very busy. After walking through the first three gates, which are free of charge, I decided to come back in the week, so turned and headed back to the Great Hall of the People.

This is used as a concert hall, exhibition hall and as a Parliamentary ‘Peoples Congress’ convened occasionally to ratify the decisions of the ruling Politburo. The Congress, when in session fills the 10,000 seater main hall!

Bear in mind the House of Commons has 650 members (of which only 400 can fit into the actual debating chamber at any one time), and Congress in the US has 535 members across two chambers.

The layout interested me though. We know the Commons is arranged in an adversarial style, the benches two swords length apart to encourage debate but to discourage dualling. Congresses’ chambers are arranged in a semi-circular fashion to encourage cross party agreement.

The Great Hall of the People is organised as a theatre auditorium. Clearly some people come to talk and others are expected to come and listen. That said, it is interesting to me that I was allowed to take a seat in the Chinese Parliamentary Chamber. I cannot sit down in the Lords or Commons in London and am not allowed to even enter either of the Chambers of Congress.

There is also a banqueting hall for State visits, where 5,000 can be seated to dine at one time. Here was proof if proof were needed that China simply works on a different scale to the rest of the world. Certainly Tian’anmen, whose monuments and layout were planned by Mao, were designed to impress.