"Fifty Glorious Years 1949-1999" (光辉的五十年1949-1999), designed by the Museum of the Chinese Revolution (中国革命博物馆) and published by the Zhongguo funü chubanshe (中国妇女出版社) and the Zhongguo dabaike quanshu chubanshe (中国大百科全书出版社) in 1999, is a series of 20 posters devoted to the period 1949-1999.
The developments that occurred after the adoption of Deng Xiaoping's strategy of Reform and Opening Up (改革开放) in 1978 receive more attention than the events preceding 1978. In that sense, the series celebrates the successes of Deng's actions. Jiang Zemin, Deng's successor, takes the credit for these successes as well.
The title reads "16. The nine divisions (poetic for China) sing the song of return" (16. 九州同唱回归曲).
The text reads "After the Opium War, Britain invaded and occupied Hong Kong through an unequal treaty. For more than a hundred years, it has been the dream of generations of Chinese to recover Hong Kong and wash away the national humiliation. After the founding of the PRC, the Chinese nation stood tall in the world with a new attitude. In order to enable Hong Kong to return to the motherland smoothly, the Chinese government insisted on the position of 'sovereignty issues are not negotiable' and signed a joint statement on the Hong Kong issue with the British government. On 1 July 1997, Hong Kong returned to the embrace of the motherland.
The return of Hong Kong to the motherland marks the great success of Deng Xiaoping's 'one country, two systems' concept, and also creates favorable conditions for the return of Macao to the motherland and the resolution of the Taiwan issue, and the realization of the peaceful reunification of the motherland." (鸦片战争后，英国通过不平等条约，侵占了我国香港。百余年来，收回香港，洗雪国耻，是几代中国人的梦想。中华人民共和国成立后，中华民族以崭新的姿态屹立在世界的地方。为了使香港能够顺利回归祖国，我国政府坚持‘主权问题不容谈判’立场，同英国政府签署了关于香港问题的联合声明。1997年7月1日，香港回到了祖国的怀抱。
香港回归祖国，标志邓小平‘一国两制’构想的巨大成功，也为澳门回归祖国和台湾问题的解决，实现祖国和平统一，创造了有利条件).
Photographs show Deng Xiaoping with Margaret Thatcher (1982); negotiations over Hong Kong; the Hong Kong Handover (1997); Li Peng swearing in Chief Executive Tong Chee-hwa (Dong Jianhua, 董建华); the bauhinia, the Hong Kong symbol; countdown clock for the Macao Handover (1999).
