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MODERN HISTORY OF CHINA

Objective chronological listing of significant events leading up to modern China.

1964

• January – In Taiwan, Commander of the First Armored Division attempts to stage a coup but fails.
  
• January - France recognizes the People’s Republic of China.
  
• February – Editorial in the People’s Daily titled “Learn from the People’s Liberation Army”, signifying an expansion of the role played by the PLA in political affairs.
  
• July – Mao Zedong presents “On Khrushchev’s Phony Communism and Historical Lessons for the World”.
  
• August – Tonkin Gulf incident. Two American destroyers are allegedly attacked by the North Vietnamese.
  
• September – Peng Mingmin and his students issue a “Self-Rescue Declaration of Taiwan". The declaration asks native Taiwanese and mainlanders to work together to establish a democratic country independent of China. Peng is arrested and sentenced to eight years in prison, but receives amnesty in November, 1964.
  
• October – Nikita Khrushchev of the Soviet Union falls from power. Khruschev is replaced by Leonid Brezhnev.
  
• October – The People's Republic of China explodes its first atomic bomb.