Chinese politics in the main is carried out in the shadows, shielded from public scrutiny and producing pre-determined outcomes through a process termed democracy according to socialism with Chinese characteristics. China's rubber-stamp legislature, the National People's Congress, is no different, with the nearly 3,000 delegates unfailingly voting according to the program handed down to them by the Communist Party leadership. This year's session saw the approval of constitutional amendments allowing President Xi Jinping to continue in office for an unlimited number of terms and reappointing him as head of state by a margin of 2,970 to none. More than ever, the rank and file of the one-party authoritarian state appear as faceless cogs and silhouettes in the wheel of governance, devoid of personal views that might clash with the leadership's and content to serve a regime that has delivered relative prosperity and political stability to China for four decades.