The Origins of China's "Reform and Opening-up" and High-level Politics

The Woodrow Wilson Center presents as part of its Cold War International History Project a talk by Gang Han.

It has long been assumed that China’s “Reform and Opening-up” started in 1978 when the Third plenum of the 11th Congress of the Chinese Communist Party was convened. In actuality, reform measures were initiated in 1977. In 1977, to promote reform, China’s top leadership made the decision to import advanced foreign technology and equipment. In this sense, reform was stimulated by opening-up.

The early period of China’s “reform and opening-up” was from 1977 to the late 1980s. There were three different perspectives and approaches on how the “reform and opening-up” should be carried out. The first, to loosen-up restrictions on the economic system, to implement limited reform of the political system, and to police ideology; the second, to initiate limited economic reform but no political reform, and to police ideology; and the third, to implement comprehensive economic and political reform, and to liberalize control over ideology. Deng Xiaoping, Chen Yun, and Hu Yaobang and Zhao Ziyang represented these three approaches respectively. The similarities and differences among these three perspectives and approaches led to complex high-level politics. This is not as simple as a struggle between the reformist forces and counter-reformist forces, as summarized by some scholars. In fact, China’ early “reform and opening-up” evolved under this very complex high-level politics.

HAN Gang is professor of history at East China Normal University. He is a leading scholar on the history of the Chinese Communist Party.