In 1972, the Gang of Four rose to power and the Cultural Revolution continued until the death of Mao Zedong and the arrest of the Gang of Four in 1976.

The Up to the Mountains and Down to the Countryside Movement, often known simply as the Sending Down movement, was a policy instituted in the PRC between mid-1950s and 1978. As a result of what he perceived to be pro-bourgeois thinking prevalent during the Cultural Revolution, Chairman Mao Zedong declared certain privileged urban youth would be sent to mountainous areas or farming villages to learn from the workers and farmers there.

In December 1978, Deng Xiaoping became the new paramount leader of China, replacing Chairman Hua Guofeng, and started the "Boluan Fanzheng" program which gradually dismantled the Maoist policies associated with the Cultural Revolution and brought the country back to order.

The 1972 visit by United States President Richard Nixon to the PRC was an important strategic and diplomatic overture that marked the culmination of the Nixon administration's resumption of harmonious relations between the United States and Mainland China after years of diplomatic isolation. The seven-day official visit to three Chinese cities was the first time a U.S. president had visited the PRC; Nixon's arrival in Beijing ended 25 years of no communication or diplomatic ties between the two countries and was the key step in normalizing relations between the U.S. and the PRC. Nixon visited the PRC to gain more leverage over relations with the Soviet Union. The normalization of ties culminated in 1979, when the U.S. established full diplomatic relations with the PRC.

The Battle of the Paracel Islands was a military engagement between the naval forces of China and South Vietnam in the Paracel Islands on January 19, 1974.

The Tiananmen Incident was a mass gathering and protest that took place on April 4-5, 1976, at Tiananmen Square in Beijing, China. The incident occurred on the traditional day of mourning, the Qingming Festival, after the Nanjing Incident, and was triggered by the death of Premier Zhou Enlai earlier that year. Some people strongly disapproved of the removal of the displays of mourning, and began gathering in the Square to protest against the central authorities, then largely under the auspices of the Gang of Four, who ordered the Square to be cleared.

The 1976 Tangshan Earthquake that hit the region around Tangshan, Hebei, China, at 3:42 a.m. on 28 July 1976. It was an was an earthquake of 7.6 magnitude.

The Beijing Spring refers to a brief period of political liberalization during the " Boluan Fanzheng" period in the PRC. It began as the Democracy Wall movement in Beijing, which occurred in 1978 and 1979, right after the end of the Cultural Revolution. The name is derived from "Prague Spring", an analogous event which occurred in Czechoslovakia in 1968.

The Chinese economic reform or opening-up is the program of economic reforms termed "Socialism with Chinese characteristics" and "socialist market economy" in the PRC. Led by Deng Xiaoping, often credited as the "General Architect", the reforms were launched by reformists within the CCP on December 18, 1978, during the " Boluan Fanzheng" period.

The Four Modernizations were goals first set forth by Deng Xiaoping to strengthen the fields of agriculture, industry, defence, and science and technology in China. The Four Modernizations were adopted as a means of rejuvenating China's economy in 1977, following the death of Mao Zedong, and later were among the defining features of Deng Xiaoping's tenure as the paramount leader of China. At the beginning of "Reform and Opening-up", Deng further proposed the idea of "xiaokang" or "Moderately prosperous society" in 1979.

The Four Cardinal Principles were stated by Deng Xiaoping in March 1979, during the early phase of Reform and Opening-up, and are the four issues for which debate was not allowed within the PRC.

When Deng Xiaoping took over as the paramount leader of the PRC, his main goal was to lift people out of poverty and significantly improve the lives of ordinary Chinese people. In justifying Opening-Up and the series of economic reforms that ensued, Deng referred to Marx and his theories, which predicted that nations need to undergo urbanization and a stage of capitalism for a natural socialist transition. His own approach included the creation of Special Economic Zones.

The Sino-Vietnamese Conflicts of 1979""1991 were a series of border and naval clashes between the PRC and the Socialist Republic of Vietnam following the Sino-Vietnamese War in 1979. These clashes lasted from the end of the Sino-Vietnamese War until the normalization of ties in 1991.

The Sino-British Joint Declaration is a treaty between the governments of the United Kingdom and China signed in 1984 setting the conditions in which Hong Kong was transferred to Chinese control and for the governance of the territory after 1 July 1997.