Jonathan Watts in Beijing Thursday March 9, 2006
Old-school Marxists have blocked a bill to protect private property in China amid an unusually public spat between party factions over the direction of reform.
The proposed legislation, which took eight years to draft, would have been a major milestone in China's transition towards a full market economy because it offered equal protection for state-owned and private property. But plans to present it to lawmakers during the National People's Congress have been scuppered by leftwing critics, who say it would deepen inequality in a country which has one of the widest gaps between rich and poor.
The opposition has been led by Gong Xiantian, a professor at Beijing University. In a letter to the country's top legislator, he said the bill contradicted the constitution. The letter was published on the internet last year and sparked furious debate that appears, at least temporarily, to have scuppered the bill.
Yang Jingyu, the chairman of parliament's law committee, told reporters yesterday the controversy meant there would not be a vote on the issue until next year.
Senior government figures also disagreed over foreign investment. Although the huge influx of overseas money, $60bn (£34.58bn) last year, has been a major driver for China's economic development, Li Deshui, the head of the National Bureau of Statistics, warned that domestic firms were falling prey to multinationals.