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| 1958, Jan |
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| The commencement of the GREAT LEAP FORWARD. It lasted in full force for about a year, then slowed up from the fall of the following year until it was discontinued in Jan. 1961. Through it, Mao attempted to radically speed up the transformation to socialism through mass mobilization, in order to thoroughly imbue the nation with Communist ideology. | 1 |
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| May 10 |
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| The government notified Japan of the cancellation of all trade between the two countries, because of Japanese prime minister Kishi Nobusuke's “hostile attitude.” | 2 |
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| Aug. 23 |
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| The Chinese Communists began a heavy bombardment of Quemoy Island, off the coast of Xiamen (Amoy), precipitating a crisis. | 3 |
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| Aug. 27 |
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| U.S. president Dwight D. Eisenhower declared that the islands of Quemoy and Matsu were more important to the defense of Taiwan than they had been three years before, at which time an earlier crisis had been averted. The U.S. Navy announced the dispatch of an aircraft carrier and four destroyers from the Mediterranean Sea to the Seventh Fleet in the waters around Taiwan. | 4 |
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| Aug. 29 |
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| The CCP politburo adopted a resolution approving the widespread formation of “people's communes,” a basic element of the Great Leap Forward, to advance the country's economic development. By the end of the year, there were 26,000 communes, home to 98–99 percent of the rural population. Many farmers were pulled out of agriculture to join in the campaign to build “backyard furnaces” and thus localize industry by producing iron and steel locally. It was a disastrous failure. Production statistics were both flawed and grossly exaggerated. Mass starvation ensued, and millions died. | 5 |
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| Sept. 4 |
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| U.S. secretary of state John Foster Dulles declared that U.S. forces would come to the aid of the Chinese Nationalists defending Quemoy and Matsu, if Pres. Eisenhower considered such action necessary for the defense of Taiwan. He also declared that the U.S. would not respect the 12-mile offshore territorial limit claimed by the Chinese Communists. When ships of the U.S. Seventh Fleet escorted a Chinese Nationalist convoy carrying supplies to Quemoy (Sept. 7), the Chinese Communists held their fire. | 6 |
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| Sept. 11 |
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| Pres. Eisenhower, in an address to the nation, said the U.S. must be ready to fight to prevent the Chinese Communist capture of Quemoy and Matsu, but he urged negotiations. The British government declared that it was under no obligation to support the U.S. in the Quemoy-Matsu crisis. | 7 |
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| Sept. 15 |
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| Ambassadorial talks between the U.S. and the PRC on the Taiwan issue opened in Warsaw, Poland. | 8 |
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| Oct. 6 |
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| The Chinese Communists began a week-long cease-fire. The PRC's defense minister called for talks between the two Chinese governments, to settle their “internal differences.” On Oct. 8, the U.S. announced that convoy operations had stopped but would be resumed if the Communists reopened fire. | 9 |
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| Oct. 17 |
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| Jiang Jieshi reasserted his determination to keep the offshore islands, and on Oct. 20, the Chinese Communists renewed their shelling of those islands, thereby breaking their extended cease-fire. But the bombardments gradually dwindled over the following months. | 10 |
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| Dec. 18 |
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| The Central Committee of the CCP passed a resolution ordering a slowdown in the establishment of communes in large cities and improvement in the operation of the 26,000 communes. Intended to create entirely new self-contained communities, the plan to create communes had created unwieldy groupings, too large to be managed efficiently; by the end of the Great Leap Forward, the communes had been subdivided, forming a total of 74,000, in an effort to build smaller, more workable collectives. Poor planning, bad harvests, and social dislocations led to mass starvation. In December, Mao resigned his post as head of the Chinese government, largely because of the disasters of the Great Leap Forward. | 11 |
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