ABSTRACT
Founded on October 1, 1949, the People's Republic of China (PRC) in 1999 will celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of its birth. The PRC's history can be divided into the Mao Zedong era and the Deng Xiaoping era, with the Hua Guofeng regime briefly sandwiched between the two. In fact, due to Deng Xiaoping's weakening health, the period after 1994 is actually the Jiang Zemin era. The twenty-seven years of the Mao Zedong era were marked by the periods of the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution. During these, Mao Zedong took personal command in attempting to realize "utopian socialism". Entering the Deng Xiaoping era, the previously dominant Utopian socialism ideology was rejected, and in its place "seeking truth from facts" and "reform and liberalization" became the dominant lines. After the Southern Excursion Talks, Jiang's political stance changed, and he emerged as a proponent of the reform and liberalization program, eventually consolidating his leadership position in the post-Deng Xiaoping era.
