"It's a kind of cosmic idea of politics that goes back centuries," Buruma said. Traditional Chinese rulers view themselves as 'people who mediate between heaven and Earth' and protect Chinese ethics, culture and politics from outside forces. That makes it easy for them to criticize 'dissidents as anti-Chinese.'" I strongly believe this "change of heart" is all a ruse, concocted in the bowels of a society that puts a premium on the merger between Sun Tzu, Confucious, Tao Te Ching, and Communism.
Most valued in this type of culture is deceit of those who are not of your tribe. This is not an open society, either before it was Communist, or afterwards. The only way to deal with China, sadly, is to doubt and disbelieve everything they say, while always asking how they would benefit from your actions, and how you would lose.
Furthermore, take a look at this description of the Tao Te Ching:
"Written between the 6th and 3rd cent. BC, it was once called the Laozi after its traditional author Laozi, though its true authorship is still unresolved. The Tao-te ching presents a way of life intended to restore harmony and tranquillity to a kingdom racked by disorder. It promotes a course of nonaction, understood as restraint from any unnatural action rather than complete passivity, thereby allowing the tao to resolve things naturally. It was designed as a handbook for rulers, who should rule by inaction, imposing no restrictions or prohibitions on their subjects. The Tao-te ching has had a tremendous influence on all later schools of Chinese philosophy and religion and has been the subject of hundreds of commentaries.
Their whole structure stresses the complete absence of change, and the refusal to alter any of its infrastructure for anybody. Hence my opinion that this is all a lie, designed to get more foreign investment, which they will ultimately, and inevitably, engulf.