The annual session of the National People's Congress opens Friday amid mounting concern among China's stability-focused leaders over the huge floating underclass that Han represents -- and its potential to sow unrest.

Han left his home in eastern Shandong province in 1994 to join the masses of itinerant workers whose sweat has fuelled China's economic miracle.

But his modest Beijing tea wholesaling business was shut down in December to make way for a housing development, cutting off his already meagre monthly earnings of about 1,000-2,000 yuan (150-300 dollars).

Han, 37, received no compensation due to rules preventing outsiders gaining residency in their adopted cities, a status that also denies them a range of social services from unemployment and health insurance to free schooling.

"The landlord threw everything we had out in the street," he said, sitting glumly amongst tins of tea in the tiny two-room flat on the capital's tough fringes where he lives with his wife and two young children.

"Suddenly, I felt I didn't belong. After more than 10 years here, I felt I had nowhere to go."

While the rubber-stamp congress is essentially powerless, it is used by the ruling Communist Party to outline its priorities for the year.

Signs indicate migrants will head the list amid fears over a widening wealth gap and social stability in a country that annually sees tens of thousands of protests -- often violent -- by those who have missed out on China's boom.

In a "Number 1 Document" released annually to underline the nation's top concerns, the government called in January for reform of the system under which people are tied to a resident certificate, or "hukou", from their hometown.

It was used in the 1950s to curb destabilising population movements in a nation recovering from civil war, but eased under economic reforms three decades ago to allow cheap labour to migrate to China's new manufacturing hubs.

However, it still denies those workers access to the country's social safety net once they leave their hometowns.

"The leaders are concerned because after 30 years of reform, we are seeing class warfare," said Willy Lam, a China analyst at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.

"With the migrants, there is increasing evidence of social injustice and the government wants to be seen creating a level playing field."

Of particular concern is a so-called "second-generation" of migrants -- web-savvy 20-somethings seen as demanding more pay, opportunities and basic rights than their peasant predecessors, and said to number over 100 million.

"Today's migrants have their eyes wide open. They are a generation in whom ideas of democracy are sprouting," said former migrant Zhou Shuheng, 31, who writes a popular blog on migrant hardships.

In the "Number 1 Document", the government for the first time singled out this new generation as a concern.

"Half of (China's) migrant workers were born after 1980 and more than 40 million were born after 1990," Han Jun, head of a rural policy research unit under the cabinet, told reporters last week.

"Most won't return to the countryside and they wish to live in the cities and enjoy rights equal to those of their city counterparts."

The government earlier this year warned of the appearance of migrant ghettoes and shantytowns in major cities -- typically breeding grounds for crime and instability.

Several cities already have rolled out or are planning limited reforms of the "hukou" system.

In an unusual joint editorial, 13 major state-controlled newspapers around the country on Monday called for its abolition, saying it "shackles the people's rights".

Zhou said drastic action is needed, especially as the world economic crisis has thrown millions of Chinese out of work.

"(These unemployed) could organise with others and create violent incidents. The government must address this or there will be big problems," Zhou said.

Han Shouhai is not about to start rioting, but his future looks grim and he is looking to the government to put forth new policies.

Without a Beijing hukou, schooling costs for his two children will mount and he is frozen out of buying government-subsidised affordable housing and certain jobs.

"If I had a Beijing hukou, many of my problems would be solved," he said.

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