In an afterword to the 2006 edition of The End of History and the Last Man, Francis Fukuyama depicted a possible scenario of world politics: the victory of an authoritarian type of capitalism over liberal democratic capitalist states. While this is not his preferred destination, it is moving in that direction. The West seems to be annoyed by a series of events: China’s cyber attacks on Western computer networks, disputes with Google, crackdowns on human rights activists, execution of a British citizen, and its unhelpful role ranging from the climate change talks to Iran’s nuclear program. The list goes on. Pundits point to the increasing threats posted by an increasingly self-confident China. But before going on criticizing China, let’s view the matter from another angle: The West’s response to China’s economic reform and opening. It plays an important part in fuelling China’s self-confidence, one of the key themes discussed in posts by Chinese scholar Zhu Xueqin (朱学勤) on BBC Chinese Web and Lu Di (芦笛) on Bullogger.com. China’s great gamble Deng Xiaoping, China’s legendary reformist leader, once said, ‘no matter black or white, it is a good cat as long as it can catch a mouse.’ It is this pragmatism that underlies China’s economic reform in 1978 after the disastrous decade of Cultural Revolution. China’s embrace of capitalism, as Zhu Xueqin likens it, successfully turns itself into a cat that catches many mice, or Western capitalist democratic nations: 小平投注的是猫，猫鼠联姻，被吃的是鼠，不是猫。 Xiaoping placed a bet on the cat. In the marriage between cat and mouse, the one being eaten is the mouse, not the cat. Even at the most dangerous moment of the gamble, the Tiananmen Incident of 1989, China’s authoritarianism steered itself out of dangers, thanks to Western capitalists: 世纪豪赌最危险的时候，是1989至1991那三年。坦克一上街，所有的老鼠都吓得屁滚尿流，外资大撤退，内资亦不继，GDP直线下降，中国面临崩盘，真可能玩完。小平同志跑到南方画一个圈，说一句“不问姓社姓资”，招商引资，春雷滚滚。 The dangerous moment of the gamble is between 1989 and 1991. With tanks on the streets, all mice were scared. Foreign investments retreated, GDP nosedived, and China faced imminent collapse. Comrade Xiaoping, during his Southern Tour, said ‘I don’t care if it is socialism or capitalism.’ With one strike, he reopened the floodgate for foreign investments again. 亏得小平高瞻远瞩，还能“不争论”，带头招商引资，引无数老鼠竞折腰。让一点市场，撒几把米粒算得了什么？资本家，资本家，我就不信资本家来了，资本家的政府不来！果然，西洋各国寻米而来，争抢中国订单，哪一国总理订单要少了，回去还有受民主舆论的喝斥。经济制裁是这样打破的，政治制裁则不消说，强虏烟飞灰灭，1989政治危机就是这样度过的。 With Deng’s far-sightedness and welcoming of foreign capitals, the mice just could not resist. What tiny cost it is just to open up the market a bit! Capitalists, capitalists, I don’t believe that once capitalists come to China, their governments would not follow! Indeed, Western countries come in one by one for Chinese contracts. What’s more, those governments which secured too few contracts would be criticized by its own constituencies and media. The economic sanction was broken in this way, not to mention political isolation. The crisis of 1989 was resolved. Capitalism and universal values Reflecting on Zhu’s article, Lu Di is not so sure whether Western civilization could insist on the universal values of justice and freedom in face of China’s capitalism: 其实列宁早就发现这点了。还在西方文明世界封锁苏俄时，他便断言，甭看帝国主义跟咱们貌似势不两立，贪婪是资本家的本性，因此他们迟早要来和我们做生意，帮助我们把国家弄得强大起来。老邓之所以在中国翅膀未硬前，便敢冒全世界之大不韪血洗北京城，也无非是吃透了西方的道义高调是假的，再“义薄云天”，最后还是得为铜臭弯腰钻狗洞，虽则可能是掩着鼻。 Actually, Lenin discovered this long ago. When Western civilization was boycotting Soviet Union, he judged that greed was the nature of capitalists. Sooner or later, they would come and do business with Soviet Union. The reason that Deng decided to bloodily suppress the Tiananmen protest of 1989, at a time when China was weak, was that he saw the hypocrisy of the West. No matter how noble or just your cause is, you just could not resist but bend down for coins. He discussed his views on a number of recent cases: 谷歌与雅虎的区别，说起来也很可怜：雅虎完全接受后面这一条，甚至向中国政府提供异议人士的通信内容，导致师涛被重判，而谷歌本已同意中国政府有权管制资讯，只是实在难以同意中国政府有权窥探公民隐私。区别也就只在这点上而已。就连这最后的底线，谷歌能否最后守住，也还在未定之天。 Talking about Google and Yahoo, it’s sad to note about their difference, which is tiny: Yahoo completely accepted [Chinese government’s intrusion on privacy], and supplied communications information of dissidents, resulting in the heavy imprisonment of Shi Tao. Google had in principle accepted Chinese government’s right to control information, and only did not accept intrusion on privacy. This is the only difference, and it is uncertain whether Google could keep to this bottomline.