Editing Zhao Ziyang (section)

==Return to government==
Zhao spent four years as a [[Machinist|fitter]] in Hunan, at the Xianzhong Mechanics Factory. Zhao Wujun, the youngest of his five sons, worked with him (Zhao also had a younger daughter). While in political exile, Zhao's family lived in a small apartment near his factory, with a small suitcase in the living room that served as a dinner table.<ref name="Prisoner" />{{Rp|xii}}

Zhao's rehabilitation began in 1971,<ref name=":322" />{{Rp|page=141}} when he and his family were woken in the middle of the night by someone banging on the door. Without much explanation, the Party chief of the factory that Zhao was working at informed Zhao that he was to go at once to [[Changsha]], the provincial capital. The factory's only means of transport was a [[Motorized tricycle|three-wheeled motorcycle]], which was ready to take him.<ref name="Prisoner" />{{Rp|xiii}} Zhao was driven to Changsha's airport, where a plane had been prepared to fly him to Beijing. Still unaware of what was happening, Zhao boarded the plane. He was checked into the comfortable [[Beijing Hotel]], but was unable to sleep: he later claimed that, after years of living in poverty, the mattress was too soft.<ref name="Prisoner" />{{Rp|xiii}} In the morning, Zhao was taken to a meeting with Premier [[Zhou Enlai]] at the [[Great Hall of the People]]. Soon after they met, Zhao began a speech that he had prepared over the previous night: "I have been rethinking the Cultural Revolution during these years as a labourer..."  Zhou cut him off, saying "You've been called to Beijing because the Central Committee has decided to name you as a deputy Party chief of [[Inner Mongolia]]."<ref name="Prisoner" />{{Rp|xiii}}

After being recalled from political exile, Zhao attempted to portray himself as a [[Maoism|Maoist]], and publicly renounced any interest in encouraging private enterprise or material incentive. Zhao's late conversion to Maoism did not last long, and he later became a "principal architect" of the sweeping, pro-market changes that followed the [[Death and state funeral of Mao Zedong|death of Mao]]. Despite his important role in guiding the economy of China over the course of his career, Zhao had no formal training in economics.<ref name="NYT" />

Throughout 1972, Zhou Enlai directed Zhao's [[political rehabilitation]]. He was appointed to the Central Committee, and in Inner Mongolia became the Revolutionary Committee Secretary and vice-chairman in March 1972. Zhao was elevated to the 10th Central Committee in August 1973, and returned to Guangdong as 1st CCP Secretary and Revolutionary Committee Chair in April 1974. He became Political Commissar of the [[Chengdu Military Region]] in December 1975.<ref>Editor. ''China Directory, 1979 Edition''. Radiopress, Inc (Tokyo), September 1978. p. 479</ref>

=== Economic reforms in Sichuan ===
Zhao was appointed [[Party Secretary]] of [[Sichuan]] in 1975,<ref name=":322" />{{Rp|page=149}} effectively the province's highest-ranking official. Earlier in the Cultural Revolution, Sichuan had been notable for the violent battles that rival organizations of local Red Guards had fought against each other. At the time, Sichuan was China's most populous province,<ref name="independent" /> but had been economically devastated by the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution, whose collective policies had collapsed the province's agricultural production to levels not seen since the 1930s, despite a great increase in the province's population.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Bramall|first=Chris|date=1995|title=Origins of the Agricultural "Miracle": Some Evidence from Sichuan|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/654997|journal=[[The China Quarterly]]|issue=143|page=753|jstor=654997|issn=0305-7410}}</ref> The economic situation was so dire that citizens in Sichuan were reportedly selling their daughters for food.<ref name="BBC1">{{Cite news|date=17 January 2005|title=Obituary: Zhao Ziyang|language=en-GB|work=[[BBC News]]|url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/2989335.stm|access-date=29 June 2021}}</ref>

During his tenure in Sichuan, Zhao introduced a series of successful market-oriented reforms, which distributed farmland to families for private use, and allowed peasants to freely sell their crops on the marketplace.<ref>{{Cite web|last=Tabeta|first=Shunshuke|date=10 March 2019|title=Cradle of China's farm reforms shines without spotlight|url=https://asia.nikkei.com/Economy/Cradle-of-China-s-farm-reforms-shines-without-spotlight|access-date=17 July 2021|website=[[Nikkei Asia]]|language=en-GB}}</ref> His policies also permitted greater autonomy and productivity incentives for factory managers.<ref name=":Chatwin" />{{Rp|page=8}} The reforms led to an increase in industrial production by 81% and agricultural output by 25% within three years.<ref name="BBC1" /> Zhao's reforms made him popular in Sichuan, where the local people coined the saying: {{Zh|s="要吃粮，找紫阳"|p="yào chī liǎng, zhǎo Zǐyáng"|labels=no}}. (This saying is a [[Homophonic puns in Standard Chinese|homophonic pun]] on Zhao's name, loosely translated as: "if you want to eat, look for Ziyang.")<ref name="independent" /><ref name="Prisoner" />{{Rp|xiii}}