This Day, That Year

Editor's note: This year marks the 40th anniversary of China's reform and opening-up policy.

In October 1980, Chen Chunxian, a researcher at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, founded a technological development service department as part of the Beijing Society of Plasma Physics in Beijing's Zhongguancun tech hub, making it the area's first civilian-run scientific and technological institution.

Since then, the area has developed into a hub for high-tech entrepreneurs and innovators, as Beijing has vowed to build it into a national center of innovation.