ABSTRACT

As we discussed in the previous chapter, the guiding political rationale of Chinese reform was not the convergence towards market liberalization but the sustain-ability of China's specific unitary political regime. As a result, the reforming measures did not aim to bring revolutionary changes toward any established ideal, but incremental improvements based on existing conditions and opportunities. The pragmatist attitude of China's reformers could be vividly seen in a series of slogans popular in the early 1980s. Many of them were rumored to be Deng Xiaoping's own inventions. One of the most famous, for example, was the “Cat Theory, ” asserting that “no matter if a cat is black or white, as long as it can catch mice, it is a good cat.” Another was the metaphor that compared the reforming process to “wading across the stream by feeling the way.” Both of these sayings encouraged Chinese people to embrace reforms as an experimental process without ideological constraints so as to solve the practical problems of the present day.