Authorities in the capital have stepped up security ahead of the annual “Two Sessions” meetings.

Delegates are in Beijing for the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) starting on Tuesday and the National People's Congress (NPC) a day later.

“There are more patrolling officers and security guards. Public security officers are also doing ID checks,” a Beijing resident told RTHK.

A tourist from the Netherlands said this is his first visit to Beijing, and he felt safe thanks to the presence of more officers.

“In the metro, there are guards at the entrance, so when you go inside they check [and] see if you bring no trouble,” he said.

“You have to go to the scanner, put your bags in the scanner and they just see if you have nothing with you that you can't bring.”

A local CPPCC deputy, Johnny Ng, believes the arrangements this year will be more flexible, allowing them to communicate better.

“We can flexibly have more communication with other delegates in CPPCC because we have over 2,000 [to] 3,000 people together,” he said.

“We hope that we can have more communications this year, in order to make sure Hong Kong can have more cooperation with other delegates and cities.”