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MODERN HISTORY OF CHINA

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

• January - Verdicts on the Gang of Four. Zhang Chunqiao and Jiang Qing are sentenced to death; both sentences are commuted to life imprisonment in 1983. The others are sentenced to lengthy prison terms.
  
• June - Official Resolution on Party History. Official accounts of the Communist Party state that over 700,000 people were ‘framed and persecuted’ during the Cultural Revolution, of whom over 30,000 died. The Cultural Revolution is condemned as a serious disaster and ten years of chaos.
  
• June – Hu Yaobang becomes chairman of the Chinese Communist Party, replacing Hua Guofeng. Deng Xiaoping becomes chairman of the Military Affairs Commission.
  
• September – Beijing announces the “Nine-Point Proposal for Peaceful Reunification,” whereby Taiwan would become a special administrative region of the People’s Republic of China. Taipei responds with “Three No’s”: no contact, no negotiations, and no compromise.
  

1981