The rule of law is breaking out in China – if not in politics, then in business. In the past month alone, Beijing regulators have used competition law for the first time to tackle monopoly behaviour at two state-owned telecoms groups, and a Shenzhen court has used Chinese intellectual property law to question Apple’s right to sell iPads in China.

There is an Alice in Wonderland quality to it all: China’s scion of central planning, the National Development and Reform Commission, has suddenly morphed into a US-style consumer advocate, indulging in its own version of Ma Bell busting almost exactly 30 years after the most famous competition ruling of all time, in US v AT&T.

And in an equally rare role reversal, a Chinese court has taken the moral high ground on an intellectual property issue. Apple is used to having other people stealing its IP in China. But now it is cast in the role of villain rather than victim: a Chinese judge last week rejected Apple’s claim that it – and not a Taiwan company that registered the trademark first – is the rightful owner of the iPad brand in China.

China is coming of age on all sorts of fronts at once: it has recently become the world’s largest auto market, will soon be the biggest luxury market – it even has its own aircraft carrier. At the same time, it is revolutionising the laws that apply to doing business locally. In the past few years, China has adopted new or heavily rewritten laws in an astonishing array of areas covering economic relations: patents, employment, bankruptcy, competition, tax, public injury and product liability – the list goes on and on.

And it has done so at a rate that would be unthinkable in any other country. Of course laws are only as good as people who obey or evade them: and evasion has long been the preferred practice in China. But in the case of intellectual property, at least, there are signs of a subtle shift in business sentiment towards the law: more companies see it as a tool to make money.

China has always had a high regard for the value of intellectual property – like a burglar knows the value of your Rolex. But recently, more Chinese companies have decided that owning IP is better than stealing it. Patent filings were up an astonishing 250 per cent last year over the previous year, as more Chinese entrepreneurs are making money by asserting their IP rights in court.

Like many things in China, change comes from above: Beijing’s decision to investigate China Telecom and China Unicom for abusing their dominant position in the internet access market sets the tone for a world where Chinese law is used to benefit consumers in ways that before would have been unthinkable.

The NDRC’s decision to investigate the two state-owned companies – which led them to back down and offer better pricing – is a “milestone”, says Adrian Emch, a competition lawyer at Hogan Lovells in Beijing. Previously, it was unclear whether Beijing would apply the 2008 anti-monopoly law to state-owned behemoths like the telecoms groups. “This shows that they are willing to take on everyone, foreign or domestic, state-owned or private. The message is: nobody is safe if you break the law,” says Mr Emch.

The case is not over yet, since Beijing must still decide whether to accept a settlement proposed by the two companies – or fine them as much as one-10th of the turnover of their broadband units.

But whatever happens, it seems clear that the law will be used more in China as a tool of competition – and not just by the regulators. China’s two large telecom equipment groups, ZTE and Huawei, are increasingly taking their rivalry to the courts: they are suing each other over patents and trademarks in several European countries.

It is all part of the natural maturation of the Chinese economy: IP piracy is a well-known path to economic growth – and not only the Chinese have trodden it. “We were like that, too, when we were a colony,” one US official pointed out recently. China will change, when it can make more money by creating IP, than by stealing it – and that day appears closer now than at any time for 30 years.

On Sunday, in a speech to mark the 10th anniversary of China’s accession to the World Trade Organisation, President Hu Jintao promised to strengthen the rule of law, reduce government interference in economic activities and improve the enforcement of intellectual property rights.

Don’t expect all that to happen at once: Chinese courts still regularly distort enforcement of laws for political reasons, Beijing still tolerates the regular violation of IP rights – and China may never have a society ruled by law, when it comes to political rights (ask Ai Weiwei). But Beijing is trying to make sure that its economy, at least, is regulated according to legal principles – and for Western business, that may be the next best thing.

Patti Waldmeir is the Financial Times’ Shanghai Correspondent