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Intense power struggle going on behind the sound bites

Reading Time:4 minutes
Why you can trust SCMP
Shirley Yam

What is it that I will take from the National People's Congress meeting in Beijing this week, many of you have asked.

It is not the caring about minyuan (the people's grievances) expressed by Premier Wen Jiabao, who had this last legislative meeting to influence the paragraph that will be written about him in Chinese history.

It is not the talk of building 36 million subsidised homes in the coming year, a plan with no details on how to pay for the trillions of yuan required.

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And it's not the pledge to make Hong Kong an offshore yuan centre and an international asset management centre, which is kind of inevitable.

No, it is the rare media shows put on by two competing leadership aspirants - Wang Qishan and Bo Xilai - on the sidelines of the meeting, and the implications for the political and economic policies in the year to come.

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But before going into that, let me share my experiences of the annual meeting of the National People's Congress in Beijing.

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