Abstract: Private economy is an important component of the socialist market economy and,together with the public ownership economy,it forms the foundation of China's economic and social development,thus it should be protected by law equally and on the same footing as the public ownership economy.Under the incentive of a series of normative documents from the Party Central Committee,the status of the private economy in the national economy has become increasingly prominent,with rising legal status in the constitution,and the protection of the private economy by criminal law has also changed.Since the reform and opening up,the normative evolution of criminal law protection for the private economy has gone through three stages:severe punishment,differential protection,and equal protection,showing the criminal law's reflection on and response to constitutional changes.However,from the legislative practice of criminal law norms,there are still some problems,for example,the concept of equal protection in Criminal Law has not been fully implemented,the scope of protection is inconsistent and the intensity of protection is different.To promote equal protection of the private economy by criminal law,it is necessary to continue to strengthen the concept of equal protection in legislative philosophy,to appropriately promote criminalization in the judiciary,to establish a crime-centered criminalization model,and to expand the scope of protection for the private economy.We should also properly evaluate the infringement of criminal behavior on legal interests,correct the imbalance in the setting of statutory penalties for breach of trust crimes,and increase the punishment for breach of trust crimes.

Key words: private economy, protection by criminal law, criminalization, infringement of legal interests, breach of trust crimes