Chronology 159
1945–1949
Communist-Nationalist Party negotiations break down; civil war begins in 1947;
Communist forces quickly defeat Nationalists, who fl ee to Taiwan
1949–present
People’s Republic of China on mainland; Republic of China on Taiwan
1957
Hundred Flowers campaign leads to persecution of intellectuals
1958–1961
Great Leap Forward leads to massive famine and thirty million deaths
1959
Suppression of revolt in Tibet
1966–1969
Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution produces chaos and isolates China
diplomatically
1971–1972
China readmitted to the United Nations; U.S. president Richard Nixon visits China
1976
Zhou Enlai dies in January; Mao Zedong dies in August; Hua Guofeng succeeds Mao
and arrests his closest associates, the “Gang of Four”
1978
Deng Xiaoping returns to power, promotes “the four modernizations,” and ends the
decades of Maoist-style class struggle
1979
Special Economic Zones created to stimulate foreign trade and investment
1987
In Taiwan, President Chiang Ching-kuo (Chiang Kai-shek’s son) lifts martial law and
permits opposition political parties
1989
Prodemocracy demonstrations suppressed in early June after six weeks of occupying
the streets of Beijing and other cities
1992
Deng Xiaoping on “southern tour” to Shenzhen reaffi rms commitment to economic
reform and rapid development (with Communist Party monopoly on political power)
1994
Jiang Zemin succeeds Deng Xiaoping and continues his policies
1997
Hong Kong reverts to Chinese control
1998
Pragmatist Zhu Rongji succeeds conservative Li Peng as premier
2000
Chen Shui-bian of the Democratic Progressive Party wins Taiwan presidency, putting
the Nationalist Party out of power on Taiwan for the fi rst time