The 40th anniversary of China's reform and opening up

FORTY years ago this month, the Communist Party of China, led by Deng Xiaoping, issued a clarion call for reform. Deng, who had emerged as the country's strongman two years after the death of Chairman Mao Zedong, warned the party faithful in an iconoclastic speech not to believe blindly but to "emancipate the mind" and "seek truth from facts".

"Of course, Comrade Mao was not infallible or free from shortcomings," Deng declared days before the opening of the pivotal third plenum of the party's 11th Central Committee on Dec 18, 1978. "To demand that of any revolutionary leader would be inconsistent with Marxism."

Mao himself dominated the People's Republic of China from its founding in 1949 until his death in 1976 and launched many political campaigns that resulted in millions of deaths while paying little attention to economic development.