The Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, the nation's parliament of more than 2,000 delegates, ended in Beijing on 12, March, with pledges to help maintain steady and relatively speedy economic development in 2009.  Top national leaders such as Hu Jingtao, Premier Wen Jiabao were present at the closing ceremony. (Xinhua)

The conference, according to the ruling Communist Party (CCP), is one of the most important institutions which carry out Chinese-style democracy, that is multiple-party co-operation led by CCP. However, the conference has always been viewed as simply a rubber stamp with its sole purpose being to give endorsement to decisions already made, thus giving semblance of ‘popular’ support for  government programs.

However, what is really popular on the internet in China these days is to highlight and satarize some of the most astonishing, impractical and absurd proposals made by the delegates.

Blogger Song Shi-nan (宋石男） gives a list of such ‘amazing’ proposals on his blog. In the appendix, he notes an interesting news:

本次全国政协会议，给每位委员配发了一台笔记本电脑，以实现无纸化政协会议。据称，这是为了响应国家节能减排的号召，节约纸张和环保.

全国政协十一届二次会议副秘书长、民革中央专职副主席修福金认为，本次大会将会期缩短了两天，而且还用电脑替代了原来大量的纸张，这表明从政协开始已经过简朴的生活，开始了艰苦奋斗。

Accordingly, 5 million RMB on paper use will thereby be saved.

However, netizens soon found that the so-called frugal measure actually costs 7.5 million RMB . Some more industrious blogger went even further and calculated how much paper was represented by the 5 million RMB and found that each delegate would have received 36,363 sheets should the 5 million have been spent! Blogger Uncle Y pokes fun of the ambition of ‘saving money’ by saying, “what a paper mountain the conference would have been!”

At a time of global economic downturn, a notable theme of the meeting is to bolster the economy, and the delegates didn't disappoint us taking much care of the issue. But their proposals are sometimes  unintentionally ironical and hilarious.

His proposal was named “economic-cultural industry of  Chinese traditional clothing”.

On NetEase, a popular online discussion board, one comment was:

我一开始还以为他是开制衣厂的,再看不是,那我就搞不懂了.这位代表是不是很少出门啊.我的天啊,我真的不敢想象把国家大事交给你们讨论会是怎么样的结果.

Other than clothing, another delegate, Zong Licheng (宗立成), proposed,

全国政协委员宗立成：确立国花可刺激经济

Blogger Song Shinan seems to be thrilled by so creative an idea. He comments:

骂国骂是不是也可刺激经济增长？那就来一嗓子——卧槽泥马！

More proposals have been presented:

张亚忠：大学生去卖猪肉不是一件坏事

赵超代表：建议设立子女养老社会保险金制度

In response to the proposal, a netizen questions:

赡养老人是应该的，但我想问一下，我每年要交3万多税,这三万多的税被用到哪里去了?

Another proposal concerns college students again, who are particularly troubled by job losses this year.

上海人大常委会原主任龚学平：恢复大学五年制教育第一年军训

Song Shinan laughs at the idea:

为缓解就业，干脆把战线再拉长一点，小学9年制，初中5年制，高中5年制，加上大学5年制，硕士6年制， 博士7年制，这样博士毕业差不多44、5岁，即使找不到工作，失业10来年也就退休了.

Ran Yun-fei, reviewing all these proposals and opinions, so categorized them:

疯狂言论、愚人提案、八卦愚乐.

But why all these ridiculous statements and happenings could happen in a solemn and important conference? He said:

两会代表不经民选，不在代表来源、阶层分布、利益博弈、民众意愿等方面加以改进，两会不只是橡皮图章，而且是十足的笑料大世界。