January 18–February 21

   During the inspection tour of Wuchang, Shenzhen, Zhuhai, Shanghai and other places, Deng Xiaoping delivered speeches and answered major questions that confused and constrained people for a long time. He pointed out that in upholding the line, principles and policies formulated since the 3rd Plenary Session of the 11th CPC Central Committee, it was essential to adhere to the principle of “one central task and two basic points.” The basic line should be adhered to for a hundred years with no vacillation. As for judging whether the road was capitalist or socialist, he said that the chief criterion should be whether it was favorable to developing the productive forces in a socialist society, to increasing the overall national strength of the socialist state and to raising the living standards of the people. Opportunities to accelerate development should be seized since development was the absolute principle. He specially emphasized that the proportion of planning to market forces was not the essential difference between socialism and capitalism. The essence of socialism was liberation and development of the productive forces, elimination of exploitation and polarization, and the ultimate achievement of prosperity for all. This talk was another declaration of emancipating the mind and seeking truth from facts that pushed forward the reform, opening up and modernization to a new stage.

February 25

   The Law of the People’s Republic of China on the Territorial Sea and the Contiguous Zone was adopted at the 24th Session of the Standing Committee of the 7th NPC.

March 8

   The State Council issued the State Medium- to Long-Term Program on Science and Technology Development.

October 12–18

   The 14th CPC National Congress adopted the report titled “Accelerate Reform, Opening up and Modernization and Achieve Greater Success in Building Socialism with Chinese Characteristics,” which summarized the great practice over the last 14 years and proposed to seize the present favorable opportunity to accelerate economic development. The Report made clear that the objective of economic restructuring was to establish a socialist market economy and all members of the CPC should be equipped with Comrade Deng Xiaoping’s theory of building socialism with Chinese characteristics. The Congress adopted the Constitution of the Communist Party of China (Revised) which incorporated Comrade Deng’s theory of building socialism with Chinese characteristics and the CPC’s basic line in the primary stage of socialism into the Constitution.

October 19

   The 1st Plenary Session of the 14th CPC Central Committee elected Jiang Zemin general secretary of the CPC Central Committee, appointed him as chairman of the CPC Central Military Commission and approved Wei Jianxing as secretary of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection.

November

   The mainland-based Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Straits and the Taiwan-based Straits Exchange Foundation reached the common understanding that both the Chinese mainland and Taiwan belonged to the same China, and the two sides should join hands to seek for the reunification of China concerning consultations on the issue of how to express verbally that “both sides of the Taiwan Straits adhere to the One-China Principle,” which was later called “1992 Consensus” afterwards.

From:Chronicle of the People's Republic of China(October 1949—September 2019), edited by The Institute of Party History and Literature of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, PP.145-148.