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Mao proclaimed the founding of the People's Republic of China
Mao was the undisputed leader of The People’s Republic of China. He became the President of China and also Chairman of the CCP. He controlled the government of China and the CPT. Controlling the CPT was more important, as in China, it was the Communist Party that really mattered. It took all of the decisions, while the government simply enforced them. -
Hundred Flowers Campaign
The Hundred Flowers Campaign was a period in 1956, during wich the CPT encouraged the citizens to speak openly on their views on communism and Mao's regime. Mao himself said that: "The policy of letting a hundred flowers bloom and a hundred schools of thought contend is designed to promote the flourishing of the arts and the progress of science", but only one year later he targeted down people who had openly critizised him before and sent them to prison labor camps. -
Mao launces the Cultural Revolution
Mao officially launches the Cultural revolution with a speech at the Central Committee of the communist party. The Revolution lasted ten years, until 1976, and its stated goal was to enforce communism in the country by removing capitalist, traditional and cultural elements from Chinese society. During the Revolution many people were forcibly displaced, tortured and harassed. Historical relics and artifacts were destroyed. -
The Ten Year Plan
Deng was put in charge of the reforms of the Ten Year Plan by Hua Guofeng. He ordered the construction of 100 000 projects that would earn foreign capital. However, the government could not sustain this type of investment and so the core of economic remained the Four Modernizations originally articulated by Zhou Enlai in 1975, but thoroughly clarified by Deng in three documents. -
The Open Door Policy
Before the Open Door Policy China's main trading partners had been the USSR and its satellites. Deng realised that China needed Western technology and investment, and opened the door to foreign businesses who wanted to set up in China.Four special economic zones were authorised in southern China with tax incentives to attract foreign capital and businesses, much of which came from overseas Chinese in places like Hong Kong and Taiwan. -
the Household Responsibility System
A new system implemented to increase the yield of farmers by introducing mechanised farming methods. According to this system, each farming household received a plot of land, which they could use as they saw fit, a predetermined quota would go back to the commune in exchange for land use. The farmers could keep or sell all surplus produce. -
Deng Xiaoping served as the leader of the CPT
Deng gained controlled of the Party and therefore the government by 1982. Although he was a communist and had conservative ideas on political ideologies he still wanted to modernize China, so that it could compete with the West in industrial production. -
Resolution on the Reform of the Economic System
As the Chinese government looked for ways to create an industrial infastructure they looked at the West for capital construction and improvements in industries. They came up with a resolution for industrial reform that loosened government control over enterprises while retaning public onership. It led to a situation where private groups could lease small and medium state enterprises, while the large ones remained directly under the control of the state. -
Tiananmen Square Massacre
The Chinese military began a brutal crackdown of the protest movement that had seen up to 100,000 people camped out in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square for more than a month. What had begun, as a series of small student gatherings to mourn the death of Hu Yaobang – the erstwhile General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party who had been expelled for his vocal support of political reform – had, by June, grown into a mass demonstration of civil disobedience by a number of disparate groups. -
Death of Deng Xiaoping
After being disconnected from life support, Deng Xiaoping died on 19 February 1997 from a lung infection and Parkinson's disease. Even though his successor Jiang Zemin was in firm control, government policies maintained Deng's political and economic philosophies.
