Petitioners air grievances in Beijing Liu Jingfeng is not a delegate to the National People's Congress - China's rubber stamp parliament - but the 60-year-old retired mechanic has travelled to Beijing to make a point to those who are attending the biggest annual political gathering in the country. "We knew it was the NPC, so we came to protest in Tiananmen Square," says Mrs Liu who is fighting against eviction from her home in Harbin, 700 miles away in Northern China. We were hoping to find some delegates to talk to. Mrs Liu is one of many petitioners who have shown up in Beijing this week to air grievances ranging from illegal land grabs, pollution concerns, or even unpaid veteran benefits The controlled atmosphere inside the Great Hall of the People where the meeting continues until March 17, could hardly be more different from that outside. Security in and around Tiananmen Square is on high alert - with bag checks and battalions of plainclothes police milling around - to try to keep people like Mrs Liu out. But protesters, in twos and threes, play a cat-and-mouse game with the authorities. Mrs Liu, has come prepared. Anticipating the inspections, she carries only a small, imitation Louis Vuitton handbag and has concealed her petition letters by storing them inside an iPad case. "The guards are checking for stuff like this," she says as she unfurls documents that, according to her, prove local officials in Harbin are trying to illegally seize her house without paying fair compensation. Among them is a picture that shows her doused in gasoline, straddling her rooftop and threatening to set herself on fire, as a bulldozer approaches her house. The bulldozer stayed at bay that time, but she worries it will be back. Growing social unrest - whether sparked by land seizures, pollution spills, or local corruption - is a big concern for China's stability-obsessed government. "Social problems have increased markedly," outgoing premier Wen Jiabao said in his opening address to the Congress on Tuesday, citing problems in the healthcare system, education, social security, and the environment, among others. "Some people still lead hard lives," he added. China's rapid economic growth over the past three decades has lifted hundreds of millions of people out of poverty. But the annual influx of petitioners during the Congress is a reminder that the next phase of China's economic and social development - which incoming leader Xi Jinping has dubbed the "China dream" - will not come easily. Mr Xi has listed fighting corruption and improving the lot of the common man as key goals of his tenure, changes analysts say will be difficult to achieve without extensive legal reform. Many of the complaints are relatively routine, with land grabs being the most common, but the petitioners are not able to resolve them in their hometowns because the courts are controlled by local governments. Petitioner Zhang Zhencheng, 41, says he approves of Mr Xi's anti-corruption drive, but hasn't seen it make much difference so far. "The leaders" words are very tough. But the developers who steal our land are also very tough," he says. Mr Zhang says his house in Harbin was bulldozed, and he has come to Beijing to fight for compensation. Mr Zhang estimates that he has been to Beijing about 20 times over the past four years to ask authorities to resolve his case. Others have been at it for much longer: Feng Xinan, 70, a Vietnam war veteran from Wuhan who commanded a company in North Vietnam during the 1960s, says he has been petitioning to get his proper veteran's benefits for more than three decades. I devoted my youth to China's national security and defence. But now no one cares about me at all," he says. China has a long tradition of allowing citizens to present petitions to their rulers, and the government has an office for that purpose, the State Bureau for Letters and Visits. But even within the petitioning system corruption is rife. Provincial officials, afraid of being exposed, go to great lengths to prevent petitioners from ever making it there, including hiring thugs to kidnap petitioners en route to the capital. Mrs Liu, who has been to Beijing to petition more than 10 times, says she decided to come to Tiananmen Square because the petitioning system itself is broken. When we go to petition at the Bureau for Letters and Visits, there are always people there who are paid to take our petition documents after we file them and make them disappear, so it's like you haven't petitioned at all. However, when she arrived at Tiananmen Square she realised she was not alone. A small group of protesters had arrived before her, and started shouting about corruption on the strip of sidewalk just in front of Mao's portrait. They were quickly bundled into police vans, as she and Mr Zhang looked on. Additional reporting Zhao Tianqi in Beijing