Shanghai Stock Exchange is founded

By late 1988, rapid investment and price pressures had made inflation a major social concern, especially for urban wage earners and pensioners on fixed incomes. Regional growth had also favored...

The 1989 protest movement and its violent suppression marked a major rupture in reform politics. The crisis revealed that market change had not resolved demands for accountability, fairness or...

Military force ended the Beijing protest movement and triggered international condemnation and sanctions. Economic reform continued under stronger political constraints. A decolonial account must hold...

The Fifth Plenum of the 13th Central Committee emphasized political stability and continued the rectification course. Reform was not wholly abandoned: authorities retained market experiments while...

The central government announced the development and opening of Pudong, extending the coastal strategy to Shanghai’s eastern bank. The project sought to restore Shanghai as a global financial and...

Shenzhen’s exchange began operating as a regional experiment in corporate finance and market infrastructure. Its location in an SEZ linked domestic institutional innovation to the opening strategy....

The 1989–91 adjustment phase restrained credit and investment, but authorities continued commodity-market experiments and gradual price changes. The period demonstrates that reform moved in cycles and...

The trade responsibility system expanded enterprise and local authority to negotiate foreign trade while requiring them to bear more of the financial results. It reduced direct administrative...

Deng’s tour of Shenzhen, Zhuhai, Guangzhou and Shanghai challenged the post-1989 pause and urged faster reform. His remarks reframed markets and planning as tools rather than ideological opposites....

The tour concluded after visits to key southern cities, giving reformist officials cover to restart investment and liberalization. The renewed mandate drew on the visible growth of SEZs but also...