Reform and opening up was a strategic policy decision made by the Chinese Communist Party at the Third Plenary Session of the Eleventh Party Central Committee convened in 1978. It is a basic national policy of the Peoplea€™s Republic of China, and thereafter China entered a new era of reform, opening up, and modernization. Through 30 years of reform and opening up, China identified the path of socialism with Chinese characteristics suited to its own development. After the Cultural Revolution ended in 1976, the Chinese people, under the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party, spent two years exploring a new path for China's modernization. The Third Plenary Session of the Eleventh Party Central Committee marked the formal start of a huge historical turning point when China returned to making economic construction the core task.