China's National People's Congress, the hardheaded know, passes laws with an independence comparable to the front wheels of a car negotiating a right-hand turn when the steering wheel goes clockwise. Japan's Yomiuri Shimbun has the scoop: "Chinese lawmakers" — read, the Politburo — "are expected to pass and enact in March a property rights law that clearly protects privately owned land." In what language, exactly? Somebody got their hands on a draft and passed along a few sentences. "Ownership rights of the state, groups and individuals are protected by law, and no individual or organization may violate these rights."
The word "expropriate" is in another clause. This is significant because in order to expropriate the state needs to take that which didn't belong to it. Chinese citizens are not privy to ownership as they are to tenancy, within a power structure that has variously resembled medieval allotment for half a century, thank you, Chairman Mao.
The People's Republic, still totalitarian, appears to be gradually acceding to those Chinese republican people, and we would celebrate this reparation of rights, and Oh, wonder what Beijing might do next — if not for inveteracies.
Not long ago I made the transitory acquaintance of a young woman who did not really smoke anymore, except for when there was a lit cigarette passing from her hand to her mouth. By all means, it was first said by correspondence, my reproaches for the sake of health were welcome, fit as they were. When finally in the girl's sullen presence, I chided — and was dismissed, "Not this time" the curt response given to clarify the earlier admission as a gratuity of flirtation, not a mea culpa.
Well, totality of the Politburo is China's little weakness, and curtailments of it, even by the Politburo itself, ought to be regarded by the free world as probationary, not exculpatory. How a Wang Wei fares against Party eminent domain, assuming a serious dispute makes it to court, should tell us a lot.