BEIJING — Chinese lawmakers have formally introduced a hotly debated law that marks one of the most explicit attempts to legally protect personal wealth by a government that only a generation ago preached communist egalitarianism.

Explaining the proposed private property law to the national legislature, Vice Chairman Wang Zhaoguo, a member of the Communist Party's powerful Politburo, said Thursday the country's economic and social changes made the law necessary.

"As the reform and opening up of the economy develop, people's living standards have improved in general and they urgently require effective protection of their own lawful property accumulated through hard work," Wang said in a speech to 2,835 deputies of the National People's Congress gathered in the massive Great Hall of the People.

Though the measure is certain to pass the party-dominated congress when its annual session ends March 16, enforcement is likely to run into interference, and the notion of private property in a communist-run country remains severely contested.

Ill-defined property rights have allowed local officials to seize businesses, houses and farmland for lucrative real-estate and commercial deals, stunting the growth of private enterprise and angering ordinary Chinese with inadequate compensation.

"When you're at the bottom of society, no one protects your interests," said Zhang Guozhen, a farmer and small businessman from Lingshou Town, 115 miles south of Beijing, who sneaked into the capital this week to protest the seizure of his cement plant 10 years ago.

Ever since, he said, he has campaigned for redress without result, surviving on odd jobs in a nearby city after selling his house two years ago.

Drafts of the property law have been divisively argued for years by liberal reformers who called for sweeping private property protections and conservative communists who want to protect state power.

Joining the campaign for better rights are a growing class of entrepreneurial Chinese whose businesses and investments the communist government increasingly relies on to generate jobs and tax revenues.

A property law was first discussed 14 years ago, legislative Vice Chairman Wang said. In a sign of how much has changed, the Chinese economy has grown six times since then to $2.7 trillion last year, the world's fourth largest. Average incomes for urban Chinese have increased five times, to $1,500.

Economics aside, bringing the measure to a vote this year gives President Hu Jintao a chance to display how well he can tamp down dissent and broker compromises among party factions ahead of a conclave later this year where he will seek a second five-year mandate as party chief, Chinese politics watchers said.