What were the goals of China’s Four Modernizations program?

The Four Modernizations was a strategic development program in China aimed at fully modernizing four key sectors by the end of the 20th century: agriculture, industry, science and technology, and defense.1

First proposed by Premier Zhou Enlai in 1964, the program was later championed by Deng Xiaoping and adopted as the nation's highest priority in late 1978. The primary goal was to shift the country's focus from ideological concerns—which had dominated the Cultural Revolution—toward rapid economic growth and modernization.12

To achieve these objectives, the government subordinated all other tasks to economic development, opened the economy to international trade and foreign investment, and implemented significant domestic reforms in rural and urban management. These efforts marked a fundamental departure from previous policies and served as the foundation for China's sustained economic expansion in the following decades.21