China's Black (or White) Cats Turn 30

This week, the Chinese government celebrated the 30th anniversary of the adoption of the Communique of the Third Plenary Session of the 11th Communist Party of China Central Committee.

What exactly does that mean? Well, if that communique adopted on December 22, 1978 never happened, Wal-Mart may not be in business, and there wouldn't be such a wide selection of cheap electronics on the market. That's because the communique was the outline of China's extraordinary shift to a market-based economy.

It was during this period that Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping made that famed, though hard-to-fact-check, statement: "No matter if it is a white cat or a black cat; as long as it can catch mice, it is a good cat" likening the Chinese economy to cats.

Many people, Chinese and otherwise, like to call this era China's reform and "opening up," while this may be true to some extent, China was hardly a closed nation from the period of 1949-1978.

In this period, it traded with many nations despite the Coordinating Committee for Multilateral Export Controls' trade embargo to China. The Committee, made up of the U.S., Canada, Japan, Turkey and European nations, wasn't dissolved until 1994.

In this fascinating editorial in China Daily, author Xiong Lei says that committee nations helped to forward the idea of China as a closed country "locking itself up" even though China was actively trading with many nations during this period.

But as Deng said, it really doesn't matter. The Chinese economy catches mice.