Deng Xiaoping's reforms: China opens
The party abandons the communes and the closed door, and in one generation the poorest of the big countries becomes the second economy of the world.
In December 1978 a party plenum under Deng Xiaoping, twice exiled under Mao, announces 'reform and opening'. The communes are dissolved, land is leased to families, special zones for foreign factories are opened in the south, students are sent abroad to study. Deng's saying is 'it does not matter what colour the cat is, so long as it catches mice'. The party's power is not loosened: in 1989 the protests on Tiananmen Square are put down by troops. In thirty years hundreds of millions come out of poverty, and by 2010 China is the second economy of the world. It is the fastest enrichment of the largest country in history, and it goes on in our own time.
Sources
Documents of the period
- the decisions of the third plenum of the Central Committee, December 1978 — the announcement of reform and opening
Scholarship
- studies of twentieth-century China — the course of the reforms, Tiananmen and the escape from poverty
Basis: documents and evidence.