Important Dates in the Development of "Modern China"
1644-1911 Qing dynasty; Manchus from north conquer plains region, administer empire with Chinese-style system, adopt Chinese elite culture. Great prosperity and expansion of some administrative control into Tibetan and Mongol regions. Imperial court in Beijing administers such outer dependencies differently than plains region.
1911-1949 Republican Era. Tumultuous period of nation-building; political control collapses into competing warlords and civil war between GMD (Guomindang, Republican Party) and CCP (Chinese Communist Party). Threats and humiliating defeats from imperialist Japan and western states.
1949 CCP wins civil war under Mao Zedong; establishes the "multinational state" of the People's Republic of China (PRC).
1958 Great Leap Forward. Mao Zedong tries to mobilize country to quickly modernize and achieve pure Communism in one step. Mass kitchens, day care organized, women encouraged to work, industry emphasized. All non-Han or traditional customs, dress, language discouraged.
1966-76 The "Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution". In order to re-establish his power in Beijing, Mao encourages radical youth to organize (as "Red Guards) and destroy the "elites", launches "Destroy the 4 olds" Campaign. Red Guard factional fighting sends country into anarchy. All non-Han or traditional customs, dress, hairstyles, language learning prohibited.
1976 Death of Mao Zedong. His widow, Jiang Qing, tries to maintain radical policies.
1978 Rise of new moderate government. Deng Xiaoping emerges as head of state, dismantles many of Mao's policies, decides people needed material incentives, not political campaigns, to modernize. Start of "household responsibility system" in the countryside.
1979 Most urban families ordered to limit family size to one child to stem population growth. Diplomatic relations with the United States normalized.
1980 Southern city Shenzhen is made the first “special economic zone” to experiment with more flexible market policies and in a matter of years it is transformed from a fishing village into a manufacturing and shipping powerhouse.
1981 Official launch of "Reform and Opening Up".
Spring 1989 Crackdown in Tiananmen square. Deng Xiaoping calls in PLA troops to crackdown on massive student and worker protests in Beijing demanding democracy, end to official corruption.
1990 The Shanghai Stock Exchange, the first ever stock market in Communist China, opens.
Summer 1992 Deng Xiaoping's famous "Southern tour" to visit booming coastal cities and call for renewed economic development and opening up.
1997 The territory of Hong Kong returns to Chinese rule after being developed as a British colony from 1842 on. Now called a "Special Administrative Region" of the PRC.
2000 President Jiang Zemin launches the "Great Develop/Open the West" (Xibu Da Kaifa) Campaign aimed at increasing investment and infrastructure-building in the PRC's poor western provinces.
2000 First Forum on China-Africa Cooperation held in Beijing. The conference passed the Beijing Declaration of the Forum on China–Africa Cooperation and the Programme for China–Africa Cooperation in Economic and Social Development.
2001 The PRC is formally adopted as a member of the World Trade Organization at the WTO Ministerial Conference in Doha, Qatar.
2001 China's bid to host the summer Olympic Games was accepted.
2002 The Communist Party of China permits entrepreneurs to become members.
2006 Two great but controversial projects, the Three Gorges Dam and a railway to Tibet, are completed.
2008 China hosts the summer Olympic Games in Beijing, meanwhile unprecedentedly widespread Tibetan unrest was put down by military intervention.
2009 July - Scores of people are killed and hundreds injured in the worst ethnic violence in decades as a protest in the restive Xinjiang region turns violent.
2011 February - China formally overtakes Japan to become the world's second-largest economy after Tokyo published figures showing a Japanese GDP rise of only four per cent in 2010.
2011 December - Southern fishing village of Wukan comes to international attention after violent protests by locals against land seizures by officials. Authorities respond by sacking two local officials and agreeing to villagers' key demands.
2013 March - Xi Jinping takes over as president, completing the once-in-a-decade transfer of power to a new generation of leaders. He launches an efficiency and anti-corruption drive.
2015 January - China's economic growth falls to its lowest level for more than 20 years - 7.4% percent in 2014. Government revises growth targets down.
2017 October - Communist Party votes at its congress to enshrine Xi Jinping's name and ideology in its constitution, elevating him to the level as founder Mao Zedong.
2018 March - National People's Congress annual legislative meeting votes to remove a two-term limit on the presidency from the constitution, allowing Xi Jinping to remain in office for longer than the conventional decade for recent Chinese leaders.