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May-June 1985
June 1985
July 1985
July 1985
spoke of his bitter experiences of 'leftist persecution'. Ideologues such as Deng Liqun and Hu Qiaomu played no part.
Enlarged Meeting of the Central Military Commission. This took decisions to reduce the size of the PLA by one million men and to reduce the number of military regions from 11 to 7. Although the Shenyang Military Region was retained, its former Commander, Li Desheng, was replaced.
Special Economic Zones. Deng Xiaoping referred to these as an experiment' after having been an enthusiastic supporter Deng was personally associated with the setting up of fourteen open coastal cities in 1984. In July 1985 it was announced that attention would be focused on only four of the fourteen cities. The cities and the SEZS were not performing well and were contributing to the serious economic problems at the time, including a sharp drop in foreign exchange reserves and excessive investment, especially in non-productive developments.
Hainan Automobile Incident. Lei Yu, head of the Hainan regional government was dismissed as a result of this scandal which involved reselling at large profit foreign cars imported with foreign exchange to other parts of China. This was the most serious single incident in a growing trend of corruption, often involving Party and government cadres and reflecting badly on reform and open door policies. The focus of the Party rectification campaign had shifted from removing the "three types of person" to stamping out economic corruption (known as "new unhealthy tendencies") towards the end of 1984. This was in the background of growing economic problems.
Deng Liqun was replaced as head of the Central Committee Propaganda Department by Zhu Houze.
18-23 September 1985 National Party Delegates Conference. This
conference, the first of its kind since 1955, together with the immediately preceding and following fourth and fifth Party plenums, marked an important step in bringing younger, better qualified and reform-minded people into the leadership. 65 full and alternate members
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