July 22, 1977

Deng Xiaoping

China publicly announces Deng Xiaoping's restoration to his former posts

Firecrackers were already going off in Beijing while the radio was still reading the announcement.

8 p.m., 22 July 1977

At 8 p.m. Beijing time on 22 July 1977, Xinhua, radio and television broadcast the communique of the Chinese Communist Party's just-concluded Tenth Central Committee Third Plenum, which had met behind closed doors from 16 to 21 July.

It restored Deng Xiaoping to seven statuses and posts: Central Committee member, Politburo and Standing Committee member, Central Committee vice-chairman, Central Military Commission vice-chairman, State Council vice-premier and PLA chief of the general staff.

Third in the row

The same communique confirmed Hua Guofeng as party and military-commission chairman, and formally expelled Wang Hongwen, Zhang Chunqiao, Jiang Qing and Yao Wenyuan from the party and all posts — nine months after their arrest.

Television made the hierarchy literal. Deng appeared beside Hua Guofeng and Ye Jianying as the leadership's third-ranked figure, not its paramount leader.

The streets that night

Crowds poured into central Beijing with flags, music, gongs and firecrackers. Contemporary dispatches reported celebrations continuing past midnight.

This was Deng's second return: he had been purged during the Cultural Revolution, rehabilitated, then purged again in April 1976.

Sources

Researched 23 Aug 2026 5 sources 2 audit passes

How this was checked

Researched from the web into a fact sheet, rewritten from that sheet, then audited against it by a different model. How the pipeline works →

What the sources leave uncertain

July 22 is the well-supported date of the nationwide public announcement. The closed plenum adopted its communique on July 21, after meeting July 16–21.
China's State Archives labels a restoration resolution July 17, while the contemporary official English communique says the plenum's communique was adopted July 21. These dates refer to internal documentation and approval stages, not the July 22 broadcast.
Later summaries often say simply that Deng was 'restored on July 22,' obscuring the difference between the internal decision and its public announcement.