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Journey through three amazing decades

(China Daily)
Updated: 2008-12-18 07:45

1978

The beginning

The Third Plenary Session of the 11th Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee convenes in Beijing on Dec 18.

It is widely considered the pivotal juncture at which the CPC began to launched its grand reform and opening-up policies and switched focus to "economic construction".

A year earlier, the resumption of National College Entrance Examination signalled another new beginning.

In November and December, 1977, 5.7 million eager candidates flocked to makeshift exam centers across the country to take the first university entrance exam in more than a decade.

Those who passed the two-day test and are subsequently enrolled numbered 270,000.

Thirty years later, many of them occupy the upper echelons of politics, economics, law, education, the arts and business.

1979

Special economic zones

The central government accepts the request of Guangdong and Fujian provinces to "move ahead of others" and approves special economic zones (SEZs) in Guangdong's Shenzhen, Zhuhai and Shantou, as well as Fujian's Xiamen.

Embracing more flexible market policies, SEZs offers preferential terms for foreign investors vis--vis land use, taxes and foreign exchange management in order to encourage exports and raise revenue.

The four economic zones stimulate economic growth to propel the country's towards development, and most famously transformed Shenzhen from a fishing village into a manufacturing and shipping hub.

Fashion comes to town

Pierre Cardin becomes the first internationally renowned fashion designer to visit China and stage private catwalk shows in Beijing and Shanghai.

Time magazine reports he is made "exclusive consultant to China's embryonic fashion industry".

Cardin later opens a Maxim's and Minim's in Beijing. His brand of suits and dresses remain popular among the Chinese.

Family planning policy

The family planning policy is first propagated in 1979, encouraging that most urban families to have only one child to stem the population growth.

The policy was officially written into China's Constitution three years later.

1982

1 country, 2 systems

Late leader Deng Xiaoping proposes the idea of "one country, two systems" as a solution for the reunification of the country.

He suggests there be only one China in the world while Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan maintain their capitalist economic and political systems.

The rest of China would maintain its socialist system.

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