Cat theory (Deng Xiaoping)

Deng Xiaoping's cat theory (simplified Chinese: 猫论; traditional Chinese: 貓論) is an economic philosophy which states, "it doesn't matter if a cat is black or white, if it catches mice it's a good cat (不管黑猫白猫，能捉到老鼠就是好猫)".

Deng argued that a planned economy or a market economy is only a tool for distributing resources and has nothing to do with political institutions. In other words, socialism can have a market economy, and capitalism can have a planned economy. The cat theory gained widespread recognition within Chinese society after Deng Xiaoping's southern tour in 1992 and became an underlying ideology of China's reform and opening up.