Deng Xiaoping Shakes the World: An Eyewitness Account of China's Party Work Conference and the Third Plenum (November-December 1978) (Voices of Asia)

It all began in 1978 when Deng emerged as China’s preeminent leader and immediately launched a new era of internal reform and expanded contact with the external world. The changes made in those early days not only altered China’s own course but were to profoundly affect the rest of the world, as well. We have long known the bare facts about the 11th Party Congress, but we have known almost nothing about the 36-day CCP Party Work Conference of November, 1978 and little more about what went on behind the scenes at the Third Plenum, which immediately followed the Conference, that December. Fortunately, in 1998, on the 20th anniversary of these earth-shaking events, one of the last surviving key participants in these meetings, Yu Guangyuan, then age 83, wrote a book describing the background and the activities of both meetings. Yu was a regular active participant in the Party Work Conference and, although he was not a member of the Central Committee, he did attend the plenum as a staff member and took regular notes. Yu based his book on his detailed notes of those meetings. . . . Thanks to Yu’s account, we now understand the nature of the Party Work Conference and the drama that took place there. Until Yu’s book appeared, it was possible for Western scholars to argue that the turning point in China’s reform and opening was at the Third Plenum of December 1978. We now know that all the key debates had already been held at the 36-day Party Work Conference . . . and that the Third Plenum which followed immediately was essentially ceremonial, officially approving the new consensus that had been worked out at the Party Work Conference.