page_title: 60th anniversary of the People's Republic of China
section_title: Background
hierarchical_section_title: 60th anniversary of the People's Republic of China / Background
caption_attribution_description: English: The Tiananmen Gate in Beijing
context_page_description: The 60th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China took place on 1 October 2009. A military parade involving 10,000 troops and the display of many high-tech weapons was held in Tiananmen Square in Beijing and various celebrations were conducted all over the country. China's paramount leader Hu Jintao inspected the troops along Chang'an Avenue in Beijing. This parade was immediately followed by a civilian parade involving 100,000 participants.
context_section_description: The People's Republic of China was founded on 1 October 1949. Since then, celebrations of varying scales occur on National Day each year. Military parades, presided over by Chairman Mao Zedong, were held every year between 1949 and 1959. In September 1960, the Chinese leadership decided that in order to save funds and "be frugal", large-scale ceremonies for National Day would only be held every ten years, with a smaller-scale ceremony every five years. The last large-scale celebration during the Mao era was in 1969. Large-scale celebrations did not take place for 14 years amidst the climax of the Cultural Revolution. Since then, the most prominent National Day celebrations have taken place in 1984 and 1999, at the 35th and 50th anniversaries respectively. During these celebrations, then-paramount leader Deng Xiaoping and Jiang Zemin reviewed military parades of the People's Liberation Army. The 2009 parade was the first and last time Hu Jintao oversaw this task, as he left office of General Secretary of the Communist Party of China (paramount leader) in 2012 due to term limits.
caption: The 60th Anniversary Military Parade took place on Chang'an Avenue, beneath Tiananmen.
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