Behind the scenes at the '17 Big' ... sort of
Posted: Sunday, October 21, 2007 9:35 AM
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Beijing, China
By Adrienne Mong, NBC News Producer
We were running at least half an hour behind schedule – a little surprising given the tightly orchestrated nature of China's weeklong Seventeenth Communist Party Congress (informally known and much less a mouthful as the "17 Big" in Mandarin).
Hundreds of journalists from around the country and around the world were herded down passageways inside the Great Hall of the People – or as NBC cameraman Marcus O'Brien calls it, the Great Walk of the People. (To get anywhere inside the cavernous building, you have to walk. A lot. The Hall, which seats China's legislature, covers more than 1.8 million square feet.)
We all came to a stop on the second floor of the Great Hall of the People, outside the viewing hall. Minutes more passed as everyone, yawning and bleary-eyed on a Sunday morning, shuffled equipment and feet.
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| Adrienne Mong / NBC News |
| Cameramen aplenty on the opening day of the Party Congress. |
However, when the doors suddenly opened, a roar erupted as everyone surged through into the room, rushing to get the best spot.
Pole position
Chinese and foreign cameramen elbowed their way to the front of the seating overlooking the stage below, planting tripods and stepladders over one another. Photographers jumped onto folding chairs and whipped out colossal telephoto lenses to get a closer shot of China's leadership arrayed in a row of seats below us. Print journalists pulled out binoculars to review the personalities.
All the big names were present: President Hu Jintao, of course; his predecessor Jiang Zemin; Premier Wen Jiabao and his predecessors Zhu Rongji and Li Peng; and many more.
The closing speeches began: "The Seventeenth National Congress of the Communist Party of China has approved the report made by Comrade Hu Jintao on behalf of its Sixteenth Central Committee...."
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| Adrienne Mong / NBC News |
| China's leadership at the closing session of the 17th Party Congress. |
As the speaker intoned, I began noting the frequent use of the phrase zhongguo tese sehui zhuyi, or "socialism with Chinese characteristics." During Hu's speech on the first day of the 17th Party Congress, this well-known slogan, which Deng Xiaoping formally introduced at the 12th Party Congress in 1982, appeared 52 times.
'Think coronation'
As much as it's a set piece that never deviates from a highly stage-managed script, the Party Congress does lay out China's future policy blueprint and elects a new leadership.
And for all its orchestration (during the opening session, Lindsey Hilsum of Britain's Channel 4 gleefully called the event a farce while the LA Times' correspondent Mark Magnier wrote, "Think coronation"), the pomp and circumstance remind onlookers that the Congress only takes place once every five years.
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| Adrienne Mong / NBC News |
| Stuffed Olympic "friendlies" adorned the front of every bus shuttling Party Congress delegates. |
As with the first day of the Party Congress, many journalists on the last day didn't bother taking notes. Instead they busied themselves with taking snapshots of one another to mark the occasion. Not unlike many of the 2,217 delegates who – during breaks – pulled out digital cameras to take pictures with one another like long-lost roommates at a college reunion.
However, I was startled out of my reverie when a number of cameras suddenly appeared to be trained in my direction. In fact, they were all zooming in on the pristine-looking journalist sitting beside me – Sally Wu, better known in this part of the world as Wu Xiaoli.
Wu is a news anchor for the popular Hong Kong-based cable news station, Phoenix TV— part-owned by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. She gained instant notoriety back in 1998, when then-Premier Zhu Rongji singled her out at his inaugural press conference, saying that he watched her news broadcast every day.
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| Adrienne Mong / NBC News |
| Delegates from the more exotic parts of China, dressed in their cultural finery, give interviews outside the Great Hall of the People. |
Several times, I tried to duck out of the way, into the lap of a rather annoyed European journalist sitting on the other side of my seat, as Chinese reporters sidled up to Wu to request to take a photo with her.
The spectacle and the spectacular
When the voting began, however, we all perked up. As Hu asked, "Agree?" all hands were raised. "Not agree?" A silence ensued for a couple of second before calls of "mei you" ("None") rang out through the hall.
Several reporters chuckled aloud. To me, the phrase was doubly amusing, recalling the days back in the 1980s, when "mei you" was the stock answer to every question you ever asked of a shopkeeper or train ticket seller in China.
Despite all the tight controls, there was one notable change this time. Several veteran Party Congress reporters told me that there was greater freedom in covering the party delegates. Media could request interviews with delegates on the Party Congress media website or simply doorstop them on their way out of meetings.
It made for quite a sight: Dozens of camera crews and reporters trailing delegates from the steps of the Great Hall of the People to the dozens of tour buses standing across the road on Tiananmen Square, ready to shuttle the delegates back to their well-guarded hotels. And the delegates most often stopped were those from China's ethnic minorities and dressed in elaborate, spectacular even, tribal costumes. This – perhaps as much as the voting itself – lent new meaning to the word spectacle.
