Plenums are identified by the number of the party congress that they follow, but the changes wrought by the Third Plenum of the 11th Congress were so momentous that when a Chinese person says simply, “the Third Plenum,” listeners know exactly to which third plenum he or she is referring. In the minds of the Chinese public, the Third Plenum marked the beginning of “Deng's reform and opening” that was to transform China. Although reform and opening had in fact begun under Hua, they were realized under the leadership of Deng.
