These forces produced open unrest within the country in late 1986 and again on a much larger scale in the spring of 1989. By 1989 popular disaffection with the CCP and the government had become widespread. Students—eventually joined by many others—took to the streets in dozens of cities from April to June to demand greater freedom and other changes. Government leaders, after initial hesitation, used the army to suppress this unrest in early June (most visibly in Tiananmen Square), with substantial loss of life. China’s elderly revolutionaries then reverted to more-conservative economic, political, and cultural policies in an attempt to reestablish firm control. In 1992, however, Deng Xiaoping publicly criticized what he called the country’s continuing “leftism” and sought to renew the efforts at economic reform. Economic growth had been especially remarkable in southern China, which had developed the highest concentration of private-sector enterprise. Since the mid-1990s the CCP has worked to drastically accelerate market reforms in banking, taxes, trade, and investments. These reforms have continued apace, and the party has attempted to increase public support by conducting energetic anticorruption campaigns that rely in part on high-profile prosecutions and occasional executions of high-level officials accused of corruption.
Demonstrators in Hong Kong protesting the detention of dissident Liu Xiaobo, December 2008.Pedesbiz
Xi Jinping speaking in Guangzhou, China, 2009.Li Huang—Color China Photo/APJiang proved to be a capable successor to Deng. He replaced Zhao Ziyang as general secretary in 1989 after the Tiananmen incident and also that year was named chair of the Central Military Commission (CMC). In 1993 Jiang became president of the National People’s Congress (NPC). He combined a pragmatic, reform-minded economic policy with an insistence that the party maintain strong control over the government. Jiang consolidated his power after Deng’s death in 1997 to become China’s paramount ruler but gradually relinquished his posts to Hu Jintao in 2002–04. In turn, in 2012, as Hu neared the end of his presidential term, China’s vice president, Xi Jinping, was positioned to succeed him, and that November Xi took over both as general secretary of the party and as chair of the CMC. Hu stepped down from the presidency in March 2013 after Xi was elected to the office by the NPC.
The future of orderly presidential transfers of power after one or two terms appeared uncertain in 2018, when the NPC passed amendments to the constitution including one that eliminated term limits for the president. This change would allow Xi to rule beyond 2023, when he had been expected to step down after two terms. The amendments, hailed by some analysts as the most significant changes to the country’s constitution since 1982, also allowed for the creation of a powerful anti-corruption agency and solidified the primacy of the CCP in government.
In the period leading up to and during the political transition that was under way by the mid-1980s, however, the government became increasingly unwilling to tolerate political criticism, and several prominent dissidents were imprisoned or had their freedoms curtailed. Notable among the jailed was Liu Xiaobo, who had been awarded the 2010 Nobel Prize for Peace—much to the anger and embarrassment of Chinese authorities. Another prominent critic of the government, the artist Ai Weiwei, was subject to harassment by officials over alleged tax violations.
On October 1, 2009, China observed the 60th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic with a large military parade in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square. Chinese-made fighter aircraft, tanks, and other military equipment were on display, along with great numbers of military personnel. This demonstration of the country’s armed might—coupled with its now-commanding presence on the world economic scene and its growing international diplomatic profile—indicated the progress that China had made in the previous decade at becoming a global superpower. Perhaps as proof of this, in 2010 China surpassed Japan to become the world’s second largest economy, behind only the United States.
Fireworks display in Tiananmen Square, Beijing, on Oct. 1, 2009, during the observance of the 60th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China.Feng Li/Getty Images
Educational and cultural policy changes
In education, the reformers gave top priority to training technical, scientific, and scholarly talent to world-class standards. This involved re-creating a highly selective and elitist system of higher education, with admission based on competitive academic examination. Graduate study programs were introduced, and thousands of Chinese were sent abroad for advanced study. Large numbers of foreign scholars were also used to help upgrade the educational system. Somewhat ironically, the value the reformers attached to making money had the unintended consequence of encouraging many brilliant people to forgo intellectual careers in favour of more-lucrative undertakings. The range of cultural fare available was broadened greatly, and new limits were constantly tested. Few groups had suffered so bitterly as China’s writers and artists, and policies since the 1980s have reflected the ongoing battle between cultural liberals and more-orthodox officials.
International relations
True reintegration of the People’s Republic of China into the international community can be said to date to 1971, when it replaced Taiwan (Republic of China; ROC) as China’s representative to the United Nations. With that event, many countries that formerly had recognized the ROC established relations with the People’s Republic. The normalization of diplomatic ties with the United States, which began in 1973, culminated in 1979.
Fireworks marking the return of Hong Kong to Chinese sovereignty on July 1, 1997.Vincent Yu/AP
China’s foreign policy since the mid-1970s generally has reflected the country’s preoccupation with domestic economic development and its desire to promote a peaceful and stable environment in which to achieve these domestic goals. Except for its disagreement with Vietnam over that country’s invasion of Cambodia in 1978, China has by and large avoided disputes and encouraged the peaceful evolution of events in Asia. China adopted a policy of “one country, two systems” in order to provide a framework for the successful negotiation with Great Britain for the return of Hong Kong and adjacent territories in 1997 and with Portugal for the return of Macau in 1999; both were given special administrative status. Furthermore, China became an advocate of arms control and assumed a more-constructive, less-combative stance in many international organizations.
The bloody suppression of the demonstrations in 1989 set back China’s foreign relations. The United States, the European Community (later succeeded by the European Union), and Japan imposed sanctions, though by 1992 China had largely regained its international standing with all but the United States. But by the mid-1990s both sides had taken steps toward improved relations, and China retained its most-favoured-nation status in U.S. trade—subject to annual review by the U.S. Congress until 2000, when Congress made the status permanent.
The collapse of communism in eastern Europe beginning in mid-1989 and the subsequent disintegration of the Soviet Union deeply disturbed China’s leaders. While hard-liners used these developments to warn about the dangers of reform, Deng Xiaoping and Jiang Zemin were able to minimize such backsliding and move China closer to becoming a major world power. The country’s admission into the World Trade Organization in 2001 was considered a significant step in its further integration into the global economy. Added to that was the international prestige that accompanied Beijing’s selection to host the 2008 Summer Olympic Games. The Games, which included events held in six other Chinese cities, were generally considered a great success. Two years later, the country staged the highly successful Expo 2010 Shanghai China world exposition, which showcased what was by then one of the world’s largest and most technologically advanced metropolises.