Before we tell ourselves more lies…

“It does not matter if a cat is white or black, as long as it can catch mice.” — Deng Xiaoping.

I have a morning meeting (it’s Monday), so this will be very brief. In 1958, the People’s Republic of China, led by Mao Zedong, began a programme called The Great Leap Forward which was meant to transform the country from an agrarian economy into an industrial and self-reliant society. One of the instruments of The Great Leap Forward was a closing of the borders to foster that sense of self-dependence. During the Great Leap Forward, agricultural targets were set, as well as steel production targets. These weren’t met, and there were stories of families in the rural countryside melting down their cutlery in order for their villages to meet their steel quotas, and commissars seizing people’s farm produce, also to meet production quotas.

These policies led to the Great Famine, a cataclysm that led to the deaths of up to 18 million people according to some sources. Of course, as long as Mao was alive, there was a refusal to publicly acknowledge the failure of his policies, and in 1966 he launched the Cultural Revolution, again another exercise in looking inward.

Like the Great Leap Forward, the Cultural Revolution damaged China’s economy, leading to the deaths of up to 2 million people. Officials such as Deng Xiaoping and Zhou Enlai who warned Mao about his irresponsible running of the economy were purged. Zhang Zhixin was imprisoned, serially raped, and eventually executed, for daring to speak out against Mao.

But no man lives forever, and Mao eventually succumbed to natural attrition. Deng took over, and one of his first actions was to open the borders. Eventually, after consolidating his power (he spent his first few years as supreme ruler having to fight the remaining elements of Mao loyalists), Deng organised the Yangtze River Cruise Conference and began to open up China’s economy.

Don’t take my word for it, look at how China’s GDP began to take off after they started to adopt more market-friendly policies.

The bottom line is this — the same way no human being can sustainably defy the laws of physics, no country can sustainably defy the laws of economics. Nigeria will be punished for the current foolishness. Let’s be prepared.