As China opened its doors to the free market and embraced capitalism, the assumption that it would simply follow the Western model was widely thought to be right. As things stand now, it would seem that not only has China decidedly not followed in the West's footsteps, but also has on the contrary developed its own, recession-proof brand of capitalism. This is what the nation's Communist Party refers to as "socialism with Chinese characteristics."

Whether this economic model adopted by the biggest communist party in the world veers more on socialism than it does on capitalism remains debatable; yet what remains undeniable is its efficacy in strict economic terms. While economies across Europe and America stagnate, the Chinese one keeps growing - as do its ancillary industries.

As the macroeconomic balance swiftly moves East, an insular mix of arrogance and ignorance still depicts the Chinese economy as a sort of mass counterfeiter. Yet the nuances are often overlooked and a notion of so-called opportunist idealism is deployed to justify or cover up the real reasons behind these "misconceptions."

Nothing illustrates this better than the dispute that some years ago erupted between China and Silicon Valley giant Google. At the time, Google was trying to penetrate the Chinese market but met by local competitors unwilling to surrender their territory, failed to do so. All of a sudden Western media were awash with news about Google being censored in China and what a devastating blow to freedom of expression that was actually meant. The Chinese government wanted to keep its population in the dark and hence blocked Google from its servers. And so the legend continued.

Funnily enough, talks of the Chinese Internet as being a shady web of anti-democratic conspiracies vanished into thin air as soon as Edward Snowden dropped the news-bomb regarding the NSA and its Orwellian surveillance system. From the day Snowden blew his whistle, almost no one seemed to show any more concern about Internet freedom in China. This fact on its own shows the ludicrous nature of Western double standards and how the "whims" of history can easily expose them. Needless to say, the battle between the Chinese government and Google was always about digital land-grabbing and never about "transparency," let alone civil liberties.

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