Second, there are plenty of countries who don’t see the Western democratic model as either the most appealing or the most obvious model to pursue. Does that mean that the geopolitical tensions that may occasionally come to the fore amount to very little?Not necessarily China offers other challenges to US dominance. If China continues to grow, it will surely demand more of the world’s scarce resources: oil prices are already high and they may go higher still. Other commodity prices may also end up rising further in the years ahead. China’s success, therefore, increases the commodity bill for Western consumers and increases global competition for access to raw materials.China, recognising this, may seek to make alliances with countries that, in Bush terms, are not with but against the US This may come in two forms. Should the protectionist faction in Congress ever manage to impose tariffs on China, they would be very much shooting themselves in the foot: tariffs on Chinese imports into the US would be tariffs on the profits and economic success of American companies operating in China.In purely economic terms, then, China’s economic success owes a lot to investment activities in China by Western companies. Chinese manufacturing skills and Western talents in management and capital allocation have combined to lead to a more efficient allocation of scarce resources.

China may be a one-party state, but the authorities certainly know all about Adam Smith and the division of labour.Ironically, then, America’s unease about China is, indirectly, the result of actions by American companies in China. China’s success is not entirely a home-grown affair: it reflects a huge surge in foreign direct investment as companies in the G7 and elsewhere have tried to take advantage of China’s low labour costs. By doing so, they have turned China into the world’s assembly plant. Sixty per cent of China’s exports and imports are today accounted for by so-called foreign-invested companies.

The Chinese authorities knew that these organisational skills didn’t exist in China: they needed help from outside.And that’s exactly what’s happened over the past 25 years. China undoubtedly had labour in abundance, but that wasn’t enough. Someone needed to organise that labour, make it competitive in international markets and ensure that China produced the kinds of goods that the world as a whole wanted to buy. In particular, his policies reflected a growing awareness of China’s own economic failings. His pragmatic approach to policy is best summarised in his now-famous remark about means and ends: “It doesn’t matter if a cat is black or white as long as it catches mice.” Openness most definitely catches economic mice.To see why, it’s worth thinking about the drivers behind China’s success over the past 25 years.

Deng Xiaoping’s approach involved a greater dialogue with the West. By doing so, it spurned the economic potential of its earlier technological advances and increasingly fell behind in the economic league tables.Deng Xiaoping revolutionised China’s relations with the rest of the world, not through the abandonment of the one-party state, but rather through a new policy of openness. China’s leadership would doubtless bristle at this view: they would offer an alternative explanation that would certainly provide an enlightening perspective on what’s been going on in recent years.Historically, China, like Russia, has been an insular nation. For centuries, its leaders chose to keep China separated from the rest of the world. Whereas Europe stood for progress and openness, China stood for tradition and insularity.