What was going on when I was born?

The United States and China will sign an agreement on industrial cooperation next week and are making ''good progress'' on a treaty to define the rights of investors in each country, Administration officials said today. The Industrial and Technological Cooperation Agreement, which was initialed last week in Peking, will be signed during Prime Minister Zhao Ziyang's visit here Jan. 9-12, according to John Hughes, a State Department spokesman. This was confirmed by Commerce Department officials. The Zhao trip and a visit to Peking by President Reagan, which is expected in April, are part of continuing efforts to improve relations since the restoration of full diplomatic ties by President Jimmy Carter in December 1978.

Because of a production error, some copies of Business Day on Saturday carried page 33 twice and omitted page 36, which included stock option tables. Any reader wishing a copy of the missing page may write to Production Quality Control, The New York Times, 229 West 43d Street, New York, N.Y. 10036.

At 0810 hours yesterday, the new police precinct in Queens had its first case. At 1150 hours, the Police Commissioner brandished a symbolic key at the station house in Jackson Heights. The 115th Precinct was formally open for business. Business at New York City's newest precinct - the first to be created in more than a decade - will be a bit different from elsewhere in the city.

The Salvadoran armed forces have announced end-of-the-month military changes without meeting United States demands for the exiling of officers suspected of taking part in death-squad activities. Diplomats and Salvadoran politicians say that the Government is having difficulty complying with the demands to reduce violence and punish offenders that Vice President Bush delivered when he visited El Salvador early in December. People suspected of death-squad activity are apparently refusing to leave the country. State Department officials indicated last week that they felt the Salvadorans had made progress in complying with the demands. They offered as evidence the arrest of an officer implicated in the deaths of two American labor advisers, a decrease in political killings and the removal of the intelligence directors of two security forces.

President Reagan thanked President Hafez al- Assad of Syria today for releasing Lieut. Robert O. Goodman Jr. and declared that the flier's return presented ''an opportune moment to put all the issues on the table'' between the United States and Syria. ''All of us here are delighted, of course, that this has taken place,'' Mr. Reagan told reporters this morning shortly after speaking by telephone with Lieutenant Goodman and with the Rev. Jesse Jackson, whose visit to Damascus ended in the flier's release. A week ago, White House officials warned that a trip to Syria by Mr. Jackson could hinder rather than help the Administration's efforts to gain Lieutenant Goodman's release.

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 4, 1984 Companies Rupert Murdoch, the Australian publisher, intends to acquire up to 49.9 percent of Warner Communications, according to papers filed with the Justice Department. At the current stock price, this could cost nearly $900 million. The move intensifies a struggle for control of Warner, 25 percent of which Chris-Craft Industries plans to buy. (Page D1.) The battle over Warner provides an arena for three tough entrepreneurs. (D1.) Pennzoil and Gordon P. Getty have joined forces to buy 48 million shares of Getty Oil stock for a reported $112 a share in cash, or a total of $5.4 billion, Wall Street sources said. Pennzoil and Mr. Getty will form a partnership, whose offer values the 79.8 million shares outstanding at about $9 billion. The per-share price would be $12 more than Pennzoil offered last week for 20 percent. (D1.)

MARKING down fresh foie gras with truffles from $10 an ounce to $5 is ''just like what they do with clothing,'' says Andrew Balducci, a partner in the Greenwich Village food store bearing his family's name. So it is, and these days, along with January's white-sale linens and clothing and furniture bargains, you are likely to see not only foie gras, but also whole smoked salmon, plum puddings, panettone and panforte, marrons glaces and caviars at reduced prices, not to mention imported cookware, cutlery and kitchen machines. In at least one department store, B. Altman & Company's branch in Short Hills, N.J., after- Christmas shoppers were seen gathering up armfuls of boxes of panettone, fruitcakes and cookies and small gift baskets filled with jams, nuts and canned delicacies, along with their half-price boxes of Christmas cards on the store's third floor. Though most of the items on sale are luxury foodstuffs, there are other food-related products being offered as well. Macy's, for example, is selling all of its Wilkinson cutlery at 50 percent off, while Conran's has earthenware as low as 95 cents for a small plate. Virtually all stores have appliances on sale, but these are usually reduced in January anyway and are listed in catalogues. Some specialty items, such as food processors, have been sold at reductions for months.

Rupert Murdoch, the Australian publisher, has filed his intention with the United States Justice Department to acquire at least 25 percent, and up to 49.9 percent, of Warner Communications Inc. At the current stock price, such an acquisition could amount to nearly $900 million. Mr. Murdoch's filing was disclosed by Warner yesterday. News America Publishing, the United States subsidiary of Mr. Murdoch's Australia-based holding company, said in the filing that it ''has a present good-faith intention'' to acquire between 16.4 million shares, or 25 percent of Warner, and 32.6 million shares, or 49.9 percent of Warner, ''depending upon market conditions and other business factors.'' The company filed under the Hart-Scott- Rodino Antitrust Improvements Act, which is mandated for most companies that plan stock purchases of a certain size.

Paul Thayer, the Deputy Secretary of Defense, is expected to resign within days so that he can defend himself against civil charges being drawn up by the Securities and Exchange Commission, an Administration official reported tonight. At issue is whether Mr. Thayer illegally passed on inside information about a stock in 1982, when he was a corporate executive and director. Mr. Thayer, who became the second-ranking Defense Department official in January 1983, met with his lawyers for more than five hours today in a downtown office building as they negotiated - apparently unsuccessfully - with S.E.C. lawyers. Among Mr. Thayer's non-Government advisers, the impression was growing tonight that he would not agree to a consent order with the S.E.C. and that his resignation was imminent.

Stanley Brezenoff, president of the City Health and Hospitals Corporation since 1981, was named a deputy mayor yesterday by Mayor Koch. Mr. Brezenoff succeeds Robert F. Wagner Jr., whose resignation will take effect at the end of the month. Mr. Brezenoff's job will not be the same as Mr. Wagner's, according to the Mayor, who took the opportunity to shift some of the duties of his three Deputy Mayors. The major change will have Mr. Brezenoff oversee all the agencies that deal with health and education, and assume the title of Deputy Mayor for Human Services. Mr. Wagner, who had some of those duties as well as others, was Deputy Mayor for Policy. 'Hard Act to Follow' Each of the two other Deputy Mayors, Nathan Leventhal and Kenneth Lipper, was given some of Mr. Wagner's duties. In exchange, Mr. Leventhal turned over to Mr. Brezenoff responsibility for the much-criticized Human Resources Administration, which Mr. Brezenoff headed before going to the hospitals corporation.

The Syrian Government today released Lieut. Robert O. Goodman Jr., the United States Navy flier its forces captured in central Lebanon a month ago after shooting down his plane. The Syrian Foreign Ministry said the release was in response to ''the human appeal of the Rev. Jesse Jackson'' and ''also to the demands'' of the United States. The Foreign Ministry termed the release a contribution toward ''creating circustances that would facilitate the withdrawal of American troops from Lebanon,'' and it expressed the hope that the United States would now take steps ''to end its military involvement'' there.

With manufacturers increasing their shipping even faster, stockpiles of goods stayed about the same - leaving the shipment-to-inventory ratio at its lowest level in 33 years, the department said. Total orders for new manufactured goods rose to $185.8 billion in November from $181.8 billion the previous month; shipments rose 2.6 percent, to $181.4 billion. With a gain of only two-tenths of 1 percent in inventories, the inventory- to-shipments ratio fell from 1.48 to 1.44 - the lowest since it dropped below 1.4 in 1950, according to Robert Ortner, the Commerce Department's chief economist.