BEIJING - China's legislature has introduced proposed constitutional amendments which are expected to pave the way for the first private property protections in the Marxist constitution, state press said.

Two amendments to the constitution were tabled by the standing committee of the National People's Congress on the opening day of its ongoing session, Xinhua news agency said.

While lawmakers are expected to debate them during the session, formal ratification is not expected until the full meeting of over 2,000 delegates to the NPC in March.

A provision that "private property obtained legally shall not be violated," will place private property on an equal footing with public property, which is already deemed "sacred and inviolable" by the current constitution, Xinhua said.

If fully implemented, it could have wide-ranging implications for the future development of China's market-driven economy.

Another amendment will enshrine the "Three Represents" political theory of former president Jiang Zemin into the document alongside "Marxism, Mao Zedong Thought and the Theories of Deng Xiaoping".

The "Three Represents" maintains that the ruling party should represent advanced production forces, advanced cultural forces and the "overwhelming majority of Chinese people."

The amendment will formally strip the state of its long-held political obligation to the working class in favour of a wider representation and appears as the ruling communists implicitly acknowledge that the egalitarian nature of its Marxist ideology is unfit for China in the 21st century.

The changes come as ordinary Chinese voice discontent over the exceptional powers of the government to wantonly requisition public property both in the areas of state-owned enterprise assets and public land holdings.

China's reform of its state-owned industries has been marked by the loss of state assets to former government officials who set up private companies, while an ongoing real estate boom has been characterized by the requisitioning of prime properties that are sold off at huge profit, often to individuals.

The amendments, when passed in March, will mark the fourth time that China's 1982 constitution has been changed.

In 1988 an amendment allowed for the "development of private economy within a legal framework," but did not offer private property protections.

In 1993, a provision stating that "the state will implement a planned economy based upon the socialist system of public ownership" was amended to "the state will implement a socialist market economy."

Meanwhile in 1999, an amendment stated that the "rights and interests" of "the individual economy and the private economy", shall be protected, but again there was no specific protections for private property.

China's move towards capitalism has also been accompanied by a perception held by an increasing number of ordinary Chinese, that 25 years of market reforms have largely enriched the bureaucratic class.

In a remarkable poll published last week, the official China Academy of Social Scientists found that 60% of some 15,000urban residents felt that party and government officials were the chief beneficiaries of 25 years of market-oriented reforms.

Respondents also said unemployment was the biggest "social contradiction" now facing the country followed by corruption and then a clash of interest between officials and citizens.

The traditional Marxist clash of interests between workers and entrepreneurs was only ranked as the fourth largest "social contradiction," the survey said.

AFP 23 December 2003