(03-16) 04:00 PDT Beijing -- After more than a quarter century of market-oriented economic policies and record-setting growth, China enacted today its first law to protect private property explicitly.

The measure, which was delayed a year ago amid vocal opposition from resurgent socialist intellectuals and old-line, left-leaning members of the ruling Communist Party, is viewed by its supporters as building a new and more secure legal foundation for private entrepreneurs and the country's urban middle-class owners of homes and cars.

But delays in pushing it through the Communist Party's generally pliant legislative arm, called the National People's Congress, and a ban on news media discussion of the draft raise questions about the underlying intentions and the governing style of President Hu Jintao and Prime Minister Wen Jiabao, experts say.

Despite a high level of interest in the law among intellectuals and businessmen, and the unexpected decision last year to withdraw the measure from the legislative agenda at the last minute, neither leader has spoken about the matter publicly. Wen's two-hour address to the nation on the opening day of the annual two-week legislative session last week did not mention property rights.

Today, 2,799 delegates voted in favor of the measure, with 52 opposed and 37 abstaining.

The measure could not have passed the legislature, which acts under the party's authority, without the active support of the top leadership. Yet the conspicuous silence of Hu and Wen appears to be a form of tribute to the lingering influence of current and former officials and leading scholars who argue that China's economic policies have fueled corruption and enriched the elite at the expense of poor people and the environment.

"My own view is that the leftist voices that have emerged are not going to disappear because we have a property law," said Zhu Xueqin, a historian and government expert in Shanghai who supports the law.

The leadership did not so much overcome opposition to the property law as forbid it. Unlike in 2005, when leaders invited broad discussion about property rights, the latest drafts of the law were not widely circulated. Several left-leaning scholars, who favor preserving some elements of China's eroded socialist system, said they had come under pressure from their universities to stay silent.

When a popular financial magazine, Caijing, defied the Propaganda Department's ban on reporting on the matter and published a cover story on the law last week, Caijing was ordered to halt distribution and reprint the issue without the offending story, people associated with the magazine said.

The final wording of the law -- and the nature of any compromises that were necessary to build a consensus within the party to pass it -- remain unclear, but many mainstream scholars and business people have welcomed it. Several said they also approved of the way Hu and Wen handled the opposition.

"I think the low-key approach was the best way to get this law passed," said Mao Shoulong, a public policy expert at People's University in Beijing. "The point is to enact a new law, not to pick a fight."

Zhu agreed. "Their style is to say less and do more," he said.

But the leadership's strategy did not resolve the underlying tensions. Hundreds of scholars and retired officials signed a petition in February against the law, which they said "overturns the basic system of socialism."

The petition said the law does too little to distinguish between private property gained legally through hard work and public property that falls into private hands through corruption. The critics also argued that China cannot give state-owned property and private property the same legal status and still call itself socialist.

The law's supporters dispute the assertion that it will protect the ill-gotten gains of corruption, arguing that it protects only legal property. As it is now, Chinese buy and sell property freely, but they do so in a legal vacuum. Supporters say they hope the law strengthens the rights of property holders, especially middle-class homeowners.

China's urban middle class has fueled a real estate boom, even though all land is owned by the state and purchasers trade only the right to use property on the land for up to 70 years. The disposition of property after that term expires is one of many unsettled issues the property law is intended to address, but the details have yet to be publicized.

Very interesting. It's a step in the right direction .

Is it possible for the PRC and and ROC to recognize each other and for the ROC parliment to rule all of China as an elected body and the PRC congress to rule as an upperhouse appointed by elected local governments?

Right on! Perhaps if Britian had kept it's nose out of China they might have modernized even earlier.

But if this is a portent of things to come then a free mainland China may reconsider its vow to reclaim Taiwan by force and just let them go their own way.

The British with their arrogance in peddling opium to the Chinese did no one any favours. They undid the oldest stable government on the planet and then set China up to be walked over by everyone else in the world, most especially by the aggressive Japanese Empire.

I have green beer!

The plan was to make China like India. If full British control was established we probably wouldn't have this communist crap.