Deng Xiaoping era ends with Xi Jinping firmly in control

THE era of Deng Xiaoping, who brought China the reform and opening-up policy in 1978, is over. This is now the era of Xi Jinping.

This year, 2018, marks the 40th anniversary of the reform movement, led by the redoubtable Deng Xiaoping, who ended the madness that had gripped China during the Cultural Revolution.

Deng's signal achievement was the decision in December 1978 by the Communist Party to embrace economic modernisation as its main task instead of class struggle. In a keynote address in preparation for the third plenary session of the Central Committee, he issued a call for emancipation of the mind, telling people to rid themselves of their mental shackles and to seek truth from facts.