BEIJING Tintin and Snowy, cartoon characters of world renown, are set to make their first legal entry into China 65 years after they were transported to the middle kingdom by the imagination of their creator.

That was in ****"The Blue Lotus,"**** the 1936 opus by Belgian artist Herge, in which the tiny reporter with the distinct hairdo saved China from evil opium traffickers.

Now, China Children Publishing House will start publishing all 22 volumes in the Tintin series, replacing pirated black-and-white editions that have so far been the only ones available to a Chinese audience.

"Our books are identical with the original, same size, same paper quality," said Xiao Liyuan, an executive with the Chinese company, which was picked from 16 candidates by Belgian publisher Casterman. "Only the language is different."

Although piracy of books, compact discs and movies has become an entire industry in China, the publisher believes it can protect itself as pirated versions of the Tintin books will be clearly inferior to the originals in quality.

"The difference will stick out a mile," said Xiao.

Until China signed international copyright agreements, Chinese publishers ran a thriving business putting out millions of pirated Tintin volumes in the early 1980s, without Casterman's permission.

In one indication of how crude the pirated versions were and how blurred the drawings, some local readers were led to believe that Tintin was Chinese.

The print quality was so bad you couldn't see Tintin was a Westerner," said Wang Yue, a fan with a striking semblance to Chang, the Chinese boy who befriends Tintin in ****"The Blue Lotus."****

But the better quality of the authorized versions will come with a price tag -- 25 yuan (three dollars) -- which is more than the daily salary of most Chinese.

According to AFP, the publisher does not expect massive sales, and so far plans to put out altogether a mere 10,000 copies, or less than 500 for each book.

Chang not only helped provide sketches of the Chinese characters in the album, but also persuaded Herge to avoid the racist stereotypes that had marred ****"Tintin in the Congo,"**** published in 1931.

Herge repaid the favor by giving the Chinese hero in ****"The Blue Lotus"**** not only Chang's physical features, but also his name.

"There is absolutely no contradiction between Tintin and China," said Xiao. "He is a courageous and astute character."

All the books except one will be published, including ****"Tintin in Tibet,"**** which has so far evaded China's copyright pirates, probably because they resented the fact that it did not explicitly describe Tibet as a part of China.

The exception is ****"Tintin in the Land of the Soviets,"**** first published in 1930, which is a scathing attack of Stalinism, and "frankly contains too many anti-communist views," Xiao said.