The People's Republic of China officially began on October 1st, 1949, when, after a near complete victory in the Chinese Civil War, Mao Zedong ( 毛泽东 ) proclaimed the People's Republic of China on top of Tiananmen ( 天安门 ) . This span of history thus lasts between 1949 and the present, and included decades of political struggle, economic and social reform, as well as many movements that left a permanent mark both inside China and on a much larger, international scale.

In the early 1950s, the PRC undertook a massive economic and social reconstruction modeled on the Soviet. The new leaders gained popular support by curbing inflation, restoring the economy, and rebuilding many war-damaged industrial installations.

In 1958 Mao broke with the Soviet model and announced a new economic program, the "Great Leap Forward ( 大跃进 ) ," aimed at rapidly raising industrial and agricultural production. The results were disastrous. Normal market mechanisms were disrupted, agricultural production fell behind, and rainland China 's people exhausted themselves producing what turned out to be shoddy, unsellable goods. Within a year, starvation appeared even in fertile agricultural areas. From 1960 to 1961, the combination of poor planning during the Great Leap Forward and bad weather resulted in famine.

In 1966, a new movement, the "Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution," ( 无产阶级文化大革命 ) was unprecedented in Communist history. Radical youth organizations, called Red Guards ( 红卫兵 ) , attacked party and state organizations at all levels, seeking out leaders who would not bend to the radical wind. As a result, the new China had undergone disastrous experiences in every areas during the lasting ten years. In view of the negative results unexpected, Mao himself officially declared the Cultural Revolution to an end in 1969, the term is today widely used to also include the period between 1969 till the arrest of the Gang of Four ( 四人帮 ) in 1976.

At the pivotal December 1978 Third Plenum of the 11th CPC Congress, the so called second generation leadership as represented by its prominent leader Deng Xiao Ping ( 邓小平 ) adopted economic reform policies known as the Four Modernizations ( 四个现代化 ) : the modernization of agriculture, industry, science and technology, as well as the military.. The strategy for achieving these aims, all of which were designed to help China become a modern, industrial nation, was "socialism with Chinese characteristics". It opened a new era in Chinese history known as Reforms and Opening up to the Outside World ( 改革开放 ). These tenets aimed at expanding rural income and incentives, encouraging experiments in enterprise autonomy, reducing central planning, and establishing direct foreign investment in Mainland China . The Plenum also decided to accelerate the pace of legal reform, culminating in the passage of several new legal codes by the National People's Congress in June 1979.

During the recovery period, Jiang Zemin ( 江泽民 ) , the third generation leader, took the office of CPC General Secretary, President of the PRC, and Chairman of the Central Military Commission, securing political stability. Under the leadership of the third generation, the People's Republic of China gained sovereignty of Hong Kong and Macau in 1997 and 1999, respectively. The third generation also oversaw the PRC's accession into the World Trade Organization after 15 years of negotiations, and Beijing was awarded to host the 2008 Summer Olympics.

In November 2002 Jiang Zemin stepped down from the powerful Politburo Standing Committee of the Communist Party of China to make way for a younger "fourth generation" of leadership led by Hu Jintao ( 胡锦涛 ) . President Hu Jintao, a hydraulic engineer who graduated from China 's prestigious Qinghua University , is believed to be highly intelligent and have a photographic memory.