"It doesn't matter whether a cat is black or white, as long as it catches mice."
A cold-blooded pragmatist who shed the madness of Mao Zedong, which starved tens of millions to death under ideological strictures, and crammed the engine of capitalism into the red shell of the Communist Party.
1. Satiation Over Ideology
Deng Xiaoping prioritized market opening (the 'let some get rich first' theory) that could immediately fill the rice bowls of the people, rather than the morality of left-wing communist ideology. Owing to this brutally pragmatic philosophy, China, with its billion-strong population, expanded explosively to join the ranks of the G2.