Finally, it appeared, issues have been again to regular.

As almost 3,000 delegates filed into Beijing’s Great Hall of the People on Tuesday for the opening of China’s annual legislative meeting, none wore face masks. Officials pressed collectively to shake palms and pose for images. Around them, reporters and diplomats from world wide milled in regards to the cavernous foyer, many invited again for the primary time because the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic 4 years earlier.

It was considered one of China’s highest-profile political levels, and the message being despatched was clear: The nation’s extended isolation was over, and it was as soon as extra open to the world and prepared for enterprise.

But regular in at the moment’s China has a distinct that means than earlier than. And beneath the veneer of openness have been indicators of how a lot China has modified previously 4 years, changing into extra insular, extra regimented, extra tightly certain to the one-person rule of its high chief, Xi Jinping.

To be allowed into the Great Hall, the place China’s most necessary political conferences happen, attendees nonetheless needed to take a government-arranged Covid check. Unlike in earlier years, when a report containing the federal government’s annual financial development goal was made public at first of the opening ceremony, this yr it was initially shared solely with delegates and diplomats.

In maybe the most important departure from earlier years, officers introduced that China’s premier, the nation’s No. 2 official, would no longer take questions on the finish of the weeklong legislative session. It was the top of a three-decades-long custom, one of many few alternatives for journalists to work together with a high chief.

“That’s where the premier’s news conference used to be,” one Chinese man in a go well with identified to a different in a low voice as they walked by the corridor on Tuesday.

Guides with that form of inside data are necessary at Chinese political occasions like these, the place the proceedings are so tightly choreographed {that a} informal observer won’t know that issues hadn’t at all times been this manner.

At 9 a.m., as a lightweight sleet fell outdoors, dozens of the delegates sat in neat rows onstage, towards a backdrop of towering pink curtains. In unison with the opposite delegates seated beneath them, they sang the nationwide anthem.

Then, because the premier, Li Qiang, took the rostrum to deliver his summary on the federal government’s accomplishments previously yr, they bent dutifully over their paper copies of his report. This yr reporters got copies of the report solely midway by Mr. Li’s speech.

Above the stage, the auditorium’s sweeping balconies have been stuffed with Chinese and overseas journalists positioning cameras, jotting down notes and peering by binoculars on the officers far beneath.

But lots of the overseas journalists have been allowed into the nation solely on momentary visas, as China has been sluggish to difficulty or denied long-term visas for a lot of Western news organizations. It expelled many American journalists in 2020, and final yr, even some overseas journalists who had legitimate long-term visas have been not allowed into the legislative session.

In Mr. Li’s almost hourlong speech, he provided repeated homages to Mr. Xi, who sat within the middle of the second row. Mr. Xi, in contrast to everybody else onstage, barely touched his copy of the work report. He sometimes sipped from one of many two teacups organized earlier than him. (For most of his first years in energy, Mr. Xi had just one cup on the opening ceremony, like the opposite delegates. But lately, Mr. Xi, who has steadily consolidated energy round himself, has had two.)

Mr. Li did acknowledge the challenges China is dealing with, together with a debt-laden actual property trade and weak demand from customers. Those are all a part of why China could also be so wanting to mission openness now, because it seeks to draw overseas buyers and reassure home entrepreneurs.

“We should communicate policies to the public in a well-targeted way to create a stable, transparent and predictable policy environment,” Mr. Li mentioned.

But one had solely to step outdoors the auditorium to see why many are leery of such guarantees. Information about and from the federal government has change into increasingly restricted, as China has expanded its definition of espionage and solid even routine interactions with foreigners as potentially dangerous. Restrictions on each the Chinese and overseas press have tightened.

Days earlier than the opening ceremony, the Foreign Correspondents Club of China mentioned {that a} journalist for the Dutch broadcaster NOS had been pushed to the bottom by law enforcement officials in a metropolis in southwestern China whereas interviewing folks there; the incident was additionally captured on camera. Across Beijing within the days earlier than the conferences, police automobiles with lights flashing have been stationed often at avenue corners, and volunteers in pink armbands stored look ahead to potential troublemakers.

On Tuesday, officers had arrange a collection of question-and-answer periods with various preselected delegates and authorities ministers — periods that, officers mentioned, helped justify the cancellation of the premier’s conventional news convention. In the foyer of the Great Hall, these officers fielded fastidiously worded questions from state media retailers about matters reminiscent of how Chinese-made automobiles could possibly be promoted abroad, and the way the Chinese folks had benefited from authorities investments in water conservancy infrastructure.

One of the chosen delegates was from Henan Province, house to a serious archaeological website referred to as Yinxu. Called on to pose a query, a reporter from a Communist Party newspaper requested him, “Recently, Yinxu’s accomplishments in archaeology have attracted a lot of attention. When it comes to the protection of cultural artifacts, do you have any special feelings?”

Outside of that fastidiously curated context, makes an attempt to interview delegates have been far much less profitable. Several officers, approached as they have been coming into or leaving the corridor, declined to reply even easy questions, reminiscent of whether or not they had submitted any legislative proposals this yr, and even the place they have been from.

One typical trade, with a delegate whose identify tag recognized him as Wang Wenqiang, from Hebei Province, went like this:

“Excuse me, did you raise any proposals this year?”

“Not this year,” Mr. Wang responded as he strode towards the auditorium, by no means breaking his stride.

“Have you raised proposals in the past?”

“Yes, last year.”

“What was it about?”

“People’s livelihoods.”

“Could you be more specific?”

“There’s someone waiting for me over there. Sorry,” Mr. Wang mentioned. And with that, he disappeared.

Siyi Zhao contributed analysis from Seoul.