According to Chinese law, the deputies to the people's congresses at county and township levels are elected directly by constituents, and the deputies to the people's congresses above the county level are elected indirectly by the deputies of the lower level. The candidates for deputies to people's congresses at various levels are nominated by constituencies or electoral units. Various political parties and people's organizations can jointly or independently recommend candidates. Ten or more constituents or deputies may jointly recommend candidates, called independent candidates.

Deputies to people's congresses are mainly workers, farmers, intellectuals, cadres, servicemen, and represent different social strata and all walks of life, such as ethnic minorities, youth, women, overseas Chinese, and entrepreneurs. Every social group and sector has a proper level of representation. Each of the country's 55 ethnic minority groups has their deputies in the National People's Congress. For instance, among the deputies to the 11th National People's Congress, 411 are from ethnic minorities, making up 13.75 percent. Women deputies make up 21.33 percent of the total number.

Independence and Conflict of Interest

According to statistics compiled by Sheng Zhengde, deputy to the Shanghai Municipal People's Congress and professor at the Shanghai Financial University, of the 857 deputies to the 11th People's Congress of Shanghai, 70 percent is made up of government officials and leaders of enterprises and institutions. Among them, government officials of bureau chief or above make up one fourth of the total number of the deputies.

Sheng Zhengde holds that the people's congresses are an arm that aims to supervise the governments, courts and procuratorates. Such a large percentage of deputies drawn from the ranks of government officialdom means that they act as both the supervisor and supervised. How can these deputies perform objectively their duties as supervisors, without conflict of interest? Ji Zhengju, executive director of the Political Party Research Center of the Compilation and Translation Bureau of the CPC Central Committee, said, "Seen from the perspective of conflicting interests, it is impossible for those official deputies to perform effective supervision on their superiors."

Some commentators have noted that in recent elections of deputies, the spirit of competition is growing, and candidates recommending themselves have appeared one after another. Xu Zhiyong, a human rights activist, lawyer who safeguards the interests of the disadvantaged, and teacher at the Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications, is among the first batch of deputies to the People's Congress of Haidian District in Beijing who were independent candidates. In May 2003, Xu Zhiyong and two other jurists jointly submitted a letter to the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress, suggesting examination of the decree entitled "Measures for the Custody and Repatriation of Vagrants and Beggars Without Assured Living Sources in Cities" – for its constitutionality – after reports of Sun Zhigang being beaten to death while in custody. Later, this decree was abolished. In late 2003, he participated in the election of the constituency of the Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications as an independent candidate. In the first round of election he was recommended by 1,000 constituents, and won the election by defeating the candidate recommended by the university authority. When his first term expired, he was reelected.