[[File:Gang of Four.PNG|right|300px|thumb|The Gang of Four, Mao's lieutenants, were put on trial for corruption after Mao's death.]]
After Mao's death in September 1976 [[Hua Guofeng ]] was quickly confirmed as party chairman and premier. A month later, Hua, backed by the army, arrested Jiang Qing and other members of the "[[Gang of Four]]" that organized the Cultural Revolution.
In December 1978, the Third Plenum (of the 11th Party Congress Central Committee) adopted economic reform policies aimed at expanding rural income and incentives, encouraging experiments in enterprise autonomy, reducing central planning, and attracting foreign direct investment into China. Hua was forced to resign at this time, leaving [[Deng Xiaoping]] as top leader.
Deng focused on market-oriented economic development. By 2000, output had quadrupled, population growth ended (by imposing a one-child policy), and good relations were secured with the West. After 1978, Mao's successor [[Deng Xiaoping]] constructed a market-economy system, while still remain de facto control over the land by imposing the length of usage of the land, and by 2000 output had increased, population growth ended (by imposing a one-child policy), and mediocre relations were secured with the West. For much of the population, living standards have improved and the material choices are growing, yet totalitarian rule and the ownership of the Internet still firmly gripped.
In 1989, the [[Tiananmen Square democracy protests]] were inspired by an explosion of democracy protests worldwide, resulting in the [[Fall of the Berlin Wall]], the Czech [[Velvet Revolution]], and the collapse of Soviet Communism. The Chinese protests however were quashed when the so-called "People's Liberation Army" killed over 10,000 Chinese people. The Chinese Communist Party then established a registry of social organizations, in order to head off political upheaval. Falun Gong, a revival of pre-Maoist Cultural Revolution traditions, registered with the Chinese government in 1992. It soon attracted “tens of millions of adherents,” the political-science professor Maria Hsia Chang writes in ''Falun Gong: The End of Days.''' Falun Gong started holding enormous gatherings; by the mid- 1990s, there were more than two thousand Falun Gong practice sites in [[Beijing]] alone. Troubled by the possibility that a large part of the population was becoming more loyal to Falun Gong than to the Communist Party, the government began cracking down on groups and banning sales of Falun Gong publications.