Roll Over, Mao!

China's leaders sent its legislature a proposed constitutional amendment on Monday to protect private property for the first time since the 1949 communist revolution - a key step toward cementing the status of capitalism in a nation undergoing radical change.

Approval seemed certain. Communist leaders who control the legislature already have endorsed private property as essential to pushing ahead economic reforms that have let millions of Chinese lift themselves out of poverty.

Party leaders also sent the National People's Congress a proposed amendment to enshrine in the constitution the theories of former leader Jiang Zemin, who invited capitalists to join the party, the official Xinhua News Agency said.

Such changes would bring China's legal framework in line with its market-oriented reality. Entrepreneurs who play a critical role in creating jobs and wealth have been lobbying for the constitutional protection.

"The leadership has recognized that the private sector will be the major engine of (economic) growth in the coming years," said Joseph Cheng, a political scientist at City University of Hong Kong. "I think there's a strong consensus and this is largely uncontroversial."

The proposed amendment on property says "private property obtained legally shall not be violated," according to Xinhua. It said that would put private property "on an equal footing with public property."

The amendments were submitted to the Standing Committee of the NPC, a smaller, party-controlled body that handles lawmaking when the full legislature - which only meets two weeks a year - is out of session.

Despite a lack of constitutional protections so far, millions of Chinese have plunged ahead in starting businesses and buying homes and stock shares issued by state companies.

The proposed amendment on property is expected to lead to a series of legal changes that would make it easier to trade real estate and other private property.

"Individual Chinese citizens, at least the wealthy ones, now own property," Cheng said. "They want their property rights to be safe."

The amendment on Jiang's theories says they shall be considered guiding principles of the nation, along with the ideology of communist founder Mao Zedong and the late supreme leader Deng Xiaoping, who launched China's economic reforms, Xinhua reported.

Achieving such a mention in the constitution would give Jiang a victory in his quest for a place in history alongside China's communist luminaries. Xinhua, however, didn't say whether Jiang would be mentioned by name - an honor that many in the party are rumored to oppose.

Jiang handed over his post as party general secretary last year to Hu Jintao and retired as president in March. However, the 77-year-old former leader remains influential as chairman of the party commission that runs China's politically active military.

Jiang campaigned before his retirement for his awkwardly titled ideology, the "Three Represents," which says the party must represent entrepreneurs as well as the working class.

Jiang's ideology was written into the ruling party's charter last year. Some members criticized it as a betrayal of the party's role as the "vanguard of the working class," but such opposition was long ago defeated.

Missing from the official reports on the proposed amendments was any mention of political reforms.

Hu, the new Chinese leader, has called publicly for greater "party democracy," but that refers only to making the ruling party more responsive to the public - not sharing power with genuine opposition parties.

China holds nonpartisan elections for village-level posts and legislative advisory panels in major cities. But party leaders say they have no immediate plans to extend popular elections to higher levels.

"Apparently, the present leadership has been unable or unwilling to take up this issue," said Cheng. "I think they are not dealing with the issue at all."

By Joe McDonald