DSE History | China Reform and Opening Lesson-Prep Guide (Tutor Edition) | Rural Contracts, Special Zones and Social Costs

2026-11-02

Tutor lesson-prep guides · Secondary History

Students can say Deng Xiaoping reformed the economy, but not what had gone wrong by 1978, which village started it, or what it cost forty years later. This lesson connects cause and effect with one timeline and one set of numbers.

Objectives — Students can: (1) explain the background to the December 1978 plenum (stagnation after the Cultural Revolution, food shortages) and the meaning of the 18 households in Xiaogang village, naming the key idea that ownership stayed collective while use rights were devolved; (2) order the four special zones of 1980, fourteen coastal cities in 1984, the 1992 southern tour and WTO entry in 2001, and compute the 23 years from 1978 to 2001; (3) evaluate the results and costs using urbanisation from 17.9% to 63.9% (46 percentage points) and rural poverty falling from about 770 million to zero.

01 Prerequisites (3-minute check)

If any of these fails, fix it before the lesson starts.

Skill	Quick check	Pass mark
Cultural Revolution	The decade of upheaval from 1966 to 1976	Economy and education were badly damaged
Command economy	The state set targets and procured output	Farmers had little reason to raise output
Percentage points	From 17.9% to 63.9%	A 46-point rise, not 3.6 times

02 Lesson flow (60 minutes)

Time	Stage	Tutor does	Student does
0-10 min	The crisis of 1978	Food shortages, stalled industry, a lost decade of schooling	List three crises
10-22 min	Rural reform first	18 households, household contracts	Explain ownership versus use rights
22-34 min	Zones and coast	Four zones in 1980, fourteen cities in 1984	Compute Shenzhen growth
34-44 min	Southern tour and WTO	1992 market economy, 2001 WTO	Compute 23 years
44-54 min	Results and costs	46 points of urbanisation, poverty to zero	Evidence on both sides
54-60 min	Exit check	Three questions marked on the spot	All three right

03 Teaching script (read it out)

Scene 1: The reform began in a village, not with a document

In 1978 China faced three pressures: collective farming gave farmers no incentive to raise output, so food and side products were chronically short; industry was skewed to heavy industry while consumer goods were scarce; and ten years of upheaval had broken schooling and research.
In November 1978, 18 households in Xiaogang, Anhui, secretly signed a pact dividing land among households under the principle of meeting the state quota, keeping the collective share and retaining the rest. In December the third plenum confirmed the shift of priority to economic construction.
The key idea is collective ownership with devolved use rights: land stayed with the collective, but cultivation and the surplus belonged to the household, so effort was tied directly to income.
The response was quick: grain output rose within a few years and township enterprises absorbed rural surplus labour. Answers must use the word incentive; naming the contract system alone earns half marks.

Ask students: why the same land yields far more under household contracts than under collective farming (effort tied to reward).

Scene 2: From four windows to a national opening

In 1980 China set up 4 special economic zones: Shenzhen, Zhuhai, Shantou and Xiamen. Hainan became a province and the 5th zone in 1988.
In 1984, 14 coastal cities opened, Pudong was developed from 1990, Deng Xiaoping restated the market direction on his 1992 southern tour, and China joined the World Trade Organization in 2001, which is 23 years after 1978.
The zones were designed as experiments: a small area tested foreign investment, land auctions and labour contracts before wider adoption.
Scale needs one figure with a caveat: Shenzhen GDP rose from about 270 million yuan in 1980 to about 3.46 trillion yuan recently, roughly 12,815 times. That multiple compares one city across decades in nominal terms, not national average growth and not an inflation-adjusted real increase.

Ask students: why the first zones were on the southern coast rather than inland (proximity to Hong Kong, shipping and overseas Chinese capital).

Scene 3: The bill after forty years

On the positive side, urbanisation rose from 17.9% in 1978 to 63.9% in 2020, a rise of 46 percentage points, from under one in five to nearly two in three; and on the official current poverty line, rural poor fell from about 770 million in 1978 to zero in 2020.
On the cost side: regional gaps (east against west income differ several times), environmental costs (air, water and soil), and social costs (migrant workers with unequal access to public services, layoffs in state enterprise reform, left-behind children).
Keep the judgement balanced: neither complete success nor pure exploitation, but growth traded for stability under specific conditions, with the costs falling mainly on rural residents and workers.
Use the 42 years from 1978 to 2020 as the scale: one generation compressed a century of industrialisation elsewhere, and compressed industrialisation carries risk.

Ask students: whether rising urbanisation necessarily means a better life (hukou, housing costs, migrant rights).

04 Question types and worked steps

Type	Example	Steps	Answer
Cause	Why reform started in the countryside	Crisis, incentive, pilot, spread	Evidence at each step
Chronology	Four stages of opening	1980, 1984, 1992, 2001	Year matched to event
Data	Urbanisation and poverty change	Subtract two points in time	46 percentage points
Evaluation	Results and costs side by side	Two positives, two negatives, balanced conclusion	Not one-sided

Sanity check (teach this): A percentage-point gap is not a percentage increase: 17.9% to 63.9% is 46 points.
The four zones date from 1980 and Hainan joined in 1988, not five in 1980.
WTO entry is 2001, not 1997 or 2008.
The Shenzhen multiple is nominal GDP without deflating, and answers should say so.
Poverty reaching zero is an official claim under the current poverty line, and the line must be stated.

05 Independent practice (3 questions)

Question	Answer	What to watch
Change from 17.9% to 63.9% urban	46 percentage points	63.9 – 17.9
Years from 1978 to 2001	23 years	Subtract the years
Shenzhen from 270 million to 3.46 trillion	About 12,815 times	34,600 / 2.7

06 Common mistakes and what to say

Mistake	Student writes	Say this
Calling the contract system privatisation	Answer: land was handed to farmers in 1978	Land stayed collective; use rights and the surplus were devolved.
Mismatching zone numbers and years	Answer: five zones in 1980 including Hainan	Four in 1980; Hainan became a zone in 1988.
Using one figure as proof of success	Answer: GDP growth proves it worked	Balance urbanisation, poverty and environmental cost.
Confusing points with per cent	Answer: urbanisation rose 3.6 times	It rose 46 percentage points, and multiples mislead from a small base.

07 Homework (paper, section and question numbers)

Secondary History chapter index — Reform and opening unit, questions 2 to 6
Secondary lesson-prep overview — Compare other subjects
DSE History practice papers — Paper 2 China unit

08 Exit check (last 5 minutes)

Question	Answer	Decision
Urbanisation change	46 percentage points	All three right means move to costs
Year of the four zones	1980	One wrong means reteach the timeline
Year of WTO entry	2001	Two wrong means return to act three

09 Tutor FAQ

Must students memorise every opened city?

No. Four zones, fourteen coastal cities, Pudong and the WTO are enough.

Was reform and opening only economic?

No. Hukou, education, culture and foreign contact changed too, and a social paragraph earns credit.

How should success be judged?

Set the criterion first: growth, poverty, environment or freedom. Different criteria give different verdicts.

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A TutorZone lesson-prep guide. Written by the TutorZone team; questions and lesson flow are original and are not taken from any school or publisher material.