ABSTRACT
The Chinese Communist Party faced an enormous credibility gap as a result of its endorsement of policies such as the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution. The subsequent influx of foreign businessmen and tourists, enabled the Chinese people to personally gain a deeper knowledge of the world beyond their borders. The first sector to undergo modernization was agriculture, imperative because over the decades it had been neglected in favour of industrialization. In the early 1980s, there was a similar trend towards ‘economic responsibility systems’ in industry, as well as the introduction of market reforms and a closer linkage between productivity and income. The modernization of the military sector seemed to be seen strictly in terms of the upgrading of weaponry and an increase in professionalism and human efficiency. Economic (re)construction, and the necessity of the Party’s guidance in attaining modernization and prosperity, became the centrepieces of propaganda in the 1980s.
