Chinese economic reform — reforms allowing more free markets in China since Deng Xiaoping
China's 1978 economic reforms shifted the country from a planned economy to a socialist market economy, lifting 800 million people out of extreme poverty over four decades.
Key Facts
- Launch date
- December 18, 1978 (11th CCP Central Committee, 3rd plenary)
- GDP growth
- From $150 billion (1978) to $18.74 trillion (2024)
- Poverty reduction
- 800 million lifted from extreme poverty (1978–2018) people
- World economy rank
- Overtook Japan in 2010; largest by PPP in 2016
- Stock exchanges established
- Shanghai and Shenzhen Stock Exchanges founded in 1990
- WTO accession
- China joined the World Trade Organization in 2001
By the Numbers
Location
Cause → Event → Consequence
Following Mao Zedong's death in 1976 and the end of the Cultural Revolution, China's centrally planned economy had left the country among the world's poorest. The Boluan Fanzheng period created political conditions for Deng Xiaoping to consolidate leadership and pursue a new economic direction.
On December 18, 1978, the Chinese Communist Party launched reform and opening-up at the third plenary session of the 11th CCP Central Committee. Led by Deng Xiaoping, the reforms de-collectivized agriculture, abolished people's communes, relaxed price controls, permitted foreign direct investment, and established special economic zones such as Shenzhen.
China's economy expanded from one of the world's poorest to the second-largest by nominal GDP and largest by purchasing-power parity. Extreme poverty fell by 800 million people between 1978 and 2018. China became the world's leading manufacturing power, joined the WTO in 2001, and established domestic capital markets, fundamentally reshaping the global economic order.