LettersDeng Xiaoping’s philosophy worth recalling in a global economy in transition
Readers remember the late Chinese leader’s contributions on his birth anniversary, and reflect on recent dog-related incidents
In May 1979, while editing the Econoscope business page at the Deccan Chronicle in Hyderabad, I accepted an offer to join the newsroom of The Star, Hong Kong, that June.
Landing in the city at that exact juncture placed me at the literal crossroads of modern economic history. Across the border, Deng Xiaoping was taking up the reins of leadership and initiating the historic “reform and opening-up” policy.
Over the ensuing years, working as a journalist across The Star, the South China Morning Post, Hongkong Standard and The Asian Wall Street Journal, I had a ringside seat to the most consequential economic metamorphosis of our era.
Deng’s brilliance was never rooted in abstract ideological dogma; it was forged in radical operational pragmatism. Inheriting an economy constrained by decades of rigidity, he cut through paralysis with unapologetic clarity: “It does not matter whether a cat is black or white, as long as it catches mice.”
Living and reporting in Hong Kong, I found the commercial dynamism impossible to ignore. Just a year after arriving, I launched a home-based business-to-business trade venture, balancing full-time journalism for eight years before dedicating a subsequent decade entirely to global exporting and merchant manufacturing. It was a lived education in the cross-border revolution Deng orchestrated.