Chinese Government Quotes & Sayings

Our policy for the last many years has been to deter the Chinese government in Beijing from ever coming into the position where they thought they had enough leverage over the U.S. to cross the Straits of Taiwan. — Bob Filner

China uses about half of the world's cement for its new roads and buildings.
According to the World Bank in 2007, China had 16 of the world's 20 most polluted cities.
One day in January 2013, the air pollution index in Beijing was 755 - measured on a scale of 0 to 500!
In late 2012, 16,000 dead pigs were found floating in the river that supplies water to
Shanghai, the PRC's largest city.
For 2010, a ministry of the Chinese government estimated the monetary cost of the environmental damage caused by rapid industrialization at $230 billion, which is 3.5 percent of China's gross domestic product.
Air pollution from Chinese factories wafts over to the Koreas and Japan. Sometimes, upper atmospheric winds carry the sulphur dioxide from China's coal-burning clear over to North America's west coast. — James Peoples

I have a lot of Chinese fans who buy my movies on the street and watch them, and I'm OK with it. I'm not OK with it in other places, but if the government's going to censor me, then I want the people to see it in any way they can. — Quentin Tarantino

Anarchists did not try to carry out genocide against the Armenians in Turkey; they did not deliberately starve millions of Ukrainians; they did not create a system of death camps to kill Jews, gypsies, and Slavs in Europe; they did not fire-bomb scores of large German and Japanese cities and drop nuclear bombs on two of them; they did not carry out a 'Great Leap Forward' that killed scores of millions of Chinese; they did not attempt to kill everybody with any appreciable education in Cambodia; they did not launch one aggressive war after another; they did not implement trade sanctions that killed perhaps 500,000 Iraqi children.

In debates between anarchists and statists, the burden of proof clearly should rest on those who place their trust in the state. Anarchy's mayhem is wholly conjectural; the state's mayhem is undeniably, factually horrendous. — Robert Higgs

The Chinese Communist Party has seen fit to protect most property rights because it recognizes that it has a self-interest in doing so. But the party faces no legal constraints other than its own internal political controls if it decides to violate property rights. Many peasants find their land coveted by municipal authorities and developers who want to turn it into commercial real estate, high-density housing, shopping centers, and the like, or else into public infrastructure like roads, dams, or government offices. There are large incentives for developers to work together with corrupt local officials to illegally take land away from peasants or urban homeowners, and such takings have been perhaps the largest single source of social discontent in contemporary China.33 — Francis Fukuyama

The Chinese government wants me to say that for many centuries Tibet has been part of China. Even if I make that statement, many people would just laugh. And my statement will not change past history. History is history. — Dalai Lama

A very high fraction of America's economic problems come not from our difficulties with education or globalization or competition with the Chinese or whatever. But they come from the fact that a small number of wealthy and powerful people who run dangerous and/or inefficient companies are able, through the use of money in the political process, to prevent the government from regulating them properly. — Charles Ferguson

China need to be fought back on. And what we need to do is go at the things that they are most sensitive and most embarrassing to them; that they're hiding; get that information and put it out in public. Let the Chinese people start to digest how corrupt the Chinese government is; how they steal from the Chinese people; and how they're enriching oligarchs all throughout China. — Chris Christie

Innovation is the running theme and spirit of the policies adopted by the Chinese government, and it is the banner that we will always hold high. — Li Keqiang

You have Google, we have Baidu. You have Twitter, we have Weibo. You have Facebook, we have Renren. You have YouTube, we have Youku and Tudou. The Chinese government blocked every single international Web 2.0 service, and we Chinese copycat every one. — Michael Anti

Chinese entrepreneurs have to implement their work under the leadership of the Party and the government - it is very clear. — Li Shufu

I think the one thing that's going on here is that people are saying, uh-oh, the Chinese economy might be slowing more than we thought and the government is having a hard time stimulating it again. — David Wessel

I didn't want to argue with my hosts. I wanted them to talk. But I felt like reminding Li that perhaps forty million Chinese people had died of starvation a half century earlier because they followed their government's orders. It was the largest famine in history. A snapshot taken then would have given a very different picture of the supposedly essential character of Chinese people, and it would have entirely missed the point. Governments matter. Markets matter. History matters. International circumstances matter. — Howard W. French

The Beijing Olympics were an exercise in Chinese soft power. Americans have the 'Voice of America' and the Fulbright scholarships. But, the fact is, in fact, that probably Hollywood and MTV and McDonalds have done more for American soft power around the world than any specifically government activity. — Shashi Tharoor

We first became conscious of the plane publicly on a Monday. I thought then by the weekend it would be done. But then the Chinese military, the defense minister made a statement saying that if there was no apology from the United States, the Chinese military and the Chinese people would never understand. No reference to the government or the Communist Party, and that obviously presented an internal problem to the Chinese leadership, which was travelling at that moment. — Henry A. Kissinger

Now the British are coming. I think Cameron should ask the Chinese government not to make people 'disappear' or to jail them merely because they have different opinions. — Ai Weiwei

If you didn't know better, you might have thought in 2003 and 2004 that U.S. government strategy was being set by people trying to make enemies rather than friends in the Arab-Islamic world. And if you didn't know better, you might think that the Chinese government's approach to the Olympics is being set by people trying to make the country look bad. — James Fallows

The crisis of democracy in the West is not the result of falling in love with another system. In Europe and America people who are disillusioned with democracy do not dream about the Chinese model or any other form of authoritarian rule. They do not dream about government that controls Internet and puts in prison those daring to disagree. — Ivan Krastev

The question, then, for Western companies, as much as for Western governments, is to decide whose side they are on: the Chinese officials who like to define their culture in a paternalistic, authoritarian way, or the large number of Chinese who have their own ideas about freedom. — Ian Buruma

By 1900, European scientists recognized that unless a way was found to augment this naturally occurring nitrogen, the growth of the human population would soon grind to a very painful halt ... After Nixon's 1972 trip the first major order the Chinese government placed was for thirteen massive fertilizer factories. Without them, China would have probably starved. — Michael Pollan

Faith is either something that informs one at all times or it isn't anything at all, really. When the Chinese government tells its citizens that they can worship in a certain building on a certain day, but once they leave that building they must bow to the secular orthodoxy of the state, you have a cynical lie at work. They've substituted a toothless "freedom of worship" for "freedom of religion". — Eric Metaxas

A woman growing up under American ideas of liberty in government and religion, having never blushed behind a Turkish mask, nor pressed her feet in Chinese shoes, cannot brook any disabilities based on sex alone, without a deep feeling of antagonism with the power that creates it. — Susan B. Anthony

When U.S. commercial interests press the Chinese government to do a better job of policing Chinese websites for pirated content, a blind eye is generally turned to the fact that ensuing crackdowns provide a great excuse to tighten mechanisms to censor all content the Chinese government doesn't like. — Rebecca MacKinnon

When this government [Chiang Kaishek's] finally fell there was no one ready to teach the Chinese the human way of life. — L. Ron Hubbard

We are very supportive of the economic reforms that the Chinese government have talked about. — George Osborne

But a multitude of people, even the two hundred million of the Chinese empire, cannot subsist without civil government. — Ezra Stiles

One of the things that I realized when I left office was that in the 1990's citizens across the world applied more power than they had ever had, as compared with the government, because of more people living under democracies than dictatorships for the first time, the power of the internet, which the young Chinese used to basically change China's policy on the SARS epidemic, and shut it down, and because of the rise in non-governmental organizations like my foundation. — William J. Clinton

One way in which we can encourage the Chinese government to take more vigorous action to control food safety in their country is by just saying we're not going to buy Chinese foods until they get their system cleaned up. Admittedly it's a difficult system to get under control because an astonishing percentage - maybe 80 percent - of the foods in China are produced in small backyard operations. — Marion Nestle

It's sad to think right now, but probably the Russian and Chinese government know more about Hillary Clinton's e-mail server than do the members of the United States Congress. And - and that has put our national security at risk. — Scott Walker

Religion wasn't a big deal in our house. I don't think it was a big deal in most Chinese households. We always had photos of ancestors, organs, and incense in bowls, but the family unit was bigger than any religion, or government for that matter. Besides education, there weren't any social issues I remember my parents getting down for. — Eddie Huang

Before she landed, Ms Clinton publicly downplayed the importance of human rights. At a press conference ahead of leaving, she beamingly implored the Chinese government to keep buying US debt, like a travelling saleswoman hawking a bill of goods. — Richard McGregor

We have a government that borrows $4 billion a day. We have a government that owes trillions of dollars in debt, half of that to foreigners, most of that to Chinese investors. I don't - that is extreme. Not only is it extreme. It's insane and it's unsustainable. — Marco Rubio

We are taking the time to consider the Hungarian case for a simple reason: to show that constitutional limits on a central government's power do not by themselves necessarily produce political accountability. The "freedom" sought by the Hungarian noble class was the freedom to exploit their own peasants more thoroughly, and the absence of a strong central state allowed them to do just that. Everyone understands the Chinese form of tyranny, one perpetrated by a centralized dictatorship. But tyranny can result from decentralized oligarchic domination as well. True freedom tends to emerge in the interstices of a balance of power among a society's elite actors, something that Hungary never succeeded in achieving. — Francis Fukuyama

I must have dialogue with the Chinese government, and dialogue requires compromise. Therefore, I'm speaking for genuine self-rule, not for independence. — Dalai Lama

We will do whatever the government tells us to do, which is a critically important principle of the Chinese market economy, and there is nothing more for discussion about it. — Li Shufu

My hope is that the Chinese government will come to realise that it is futile to repress free speech, and that contrary to what they believe a regime's strength rests not its suppression of a plurality of opinions and ideas, but in its capacity and willingness to encourage them. — Ma Jian

Senegal had always boasted one of Africa's most vibrant merchant cultures. The country's boubou-wearing traders had long colonized street corners in New York and many a European city, where they sold clothing, gadgetry, and assorted tourist fare. But in 2004, Dakar's traders woke up suddenly to the alarming notion that they were in turn being colonized by Chinese who seemed to be taking over the retail sector. Large protests followed in Dakar, with the striking Senegalese traders demanding government action to protect them from the Chinese newcomers. From — Howard W. French

If China someday gains a more fair, just, and accountable system of government, it will be due to the hard work and efforts of the Chinese people, not due to the inexorable workings of any particular technology. — Rebecca MacKinnon

For years, the US government loudly warned the world that Chinese routers and other Internet devices pose a "threat" because they are built with backdoor surveillance functionality that gives the Chinese government the ability to spy on anyone using them. Yet what the NSA's documents show is that Americans have been engaged in precisely the activity that the United States accused the Chinese of doing. — Glenn Greenwald

The Japanese army is now prepared to use every means within its power to subdue its opponents. The objectives of the Japanese Expeditionary Forces are, as clearly set forth in statements issued by the Japanese Government, not only to protect the vested interests of Japan and the lives and property of the Japanese residents in the affected area, but also to scourge the Chinese Government and army who have een pursuing anti-foreign and anti-Japanese policies in collaboration with Communist influences. — Iwane Matsui

In a general sense, I think it's bad to bring too much money into climbing, since it takes away a little from the beauty of the mountains. But at the same time, I can't blame the Nepali government - or the Indian, Pakistani or Chinese, depending on where you're climbing - from wanting to capitalize on foreign climbers. — Alex Honnold

I believe China is a major trade violator. The Chinese break all the rules. They counterfeit our goods, steal our international property rights, and hack the computers of our industries and government. Something must be done about it. — Lawrence Kudlow

In the early 1990s we witnessed the emergence of a revitalized contemporary Chinese art world that began as a reaction against the government-approved Social Realist style. Zhang Xiaogang, Huang Yong Ping, Ai WeiWei, Yue Minjun, and Wang Guangyi were among the first group of artists to establish a movement that became known as Cynical Realism. — Arne Glimcher

Talks since the end of the Chinese civil war in 1949 when the Republic of China government — Anonymous

Google will be obliged either to accept Chinese regulations or exit the world's largest Internet market, with serious consequences for its long-term global ambitions. This is a metaphor for our times: America's most dynamic company cannot take on the Chinese government - even on an issue like free and open information - and win. — Martin Jacques

The Chinese have always enjoyed gambling, and Macau is the only place in Greater China where gambling is legal. So I believe the government understands that there has to be a place for it. — Lui Che Woo

Accidents have already become an important factor restricting the development of a harmonious economy and society, and have attracted the strong attention of the Chinese government and society — Li Yizhong

With few exceptions, democracy has not brought good government to new developing countries ... What Asians value may not necessarily be what Americans or Europeans value. Westerners value the freedoms and liberties of the individual. As an Asian of Chinese cultural backround, my values are for a government which is honest, effective and efficient. — Lee Kuan Yew

The Chinese government still would like to see U.S. Internet companies explore the Chinese market, providing they are willing to abide by Chinese law. I think companies like Facebook should think about the Chinese market. — Robin Li

Perhaps he found it strange being accompanied by a Chinese-Nigerian arms trafficking pirate, but the Irish priest had just followed me silently on board the covert government transport. — Dayo Ntwari

There is clearly a constituency that appreciates the message that Google is sending, that it finds the Chinese government's attitude to the Internet and censorship unacceptable. — Rebecca MacKinnon

Our Western press soldiers from The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, The Economist, etc. (often 1 correspondent for every 200 million Chinese), happily manufacture stories, demonize the Chinese government, and fabricate heroes, saviors, and incidents for China, at will. — Thorsten J. Pattberg

The Chinese government attaches importance to, and protects, human rights. We have incorporated these lines into the Chinese constitution, and we also implement the stipulation in real earnest. I think for any government, what is most important is to ensure that its people enjoy each and every right given to them by the constitution. — Wen Jiabao

The Chinese government clearly sees Internet and mobile innovation as a major driver of its global economic competitiveness going forward. — Rebecca MacKinnon

The Chinese government is quickly losing its ideological legitimacy, maintain its rule with force, but cannot draw strength from the ideology of Marx and Mao. — Steve Forbes

I am really close to the Chinese government. And I have a chance to talk to them, listen to them. — Thaksin Shinawatra

I consider the Chinese government's policy among the most intelligent in the world — Gary Bauer

This president [Barack Obama ] has seen personnel records of people who have sacrificed for the American people and for the federal government stolen by the Chinese and he's done nothing in return. — Chris Christie

The Hai Rong set out on 9 April and arrived in Vladivostok a week later to a warm welcome by the Chinese community. It was the first time the Chinese government had used ships to evacuate its citizens from a foreign country. — Mark O'Neill

Chinese artists have been subversive over thousands of years, taking what they think of the government and embedding it in their art. There might be censorship of not going as far as they might. — Amy Tan

Increased congestion was highlighted by the 2009 collision between a Russian government Cosmos satellite and a U.S. commercial Iridium satellite. The collision created approximately 1,500 new pieces of trackable space debris, adding to the more than 3,000 pieces of debris created by the 2007 Chinese ASAT test. — Anonymous

There's a reason the Chinese government is very concerned about Ai Weiwei. It's because he has all of these ingredients in his life that allow him to attract enormous attention across a very broad spectrum of the population. — Evan Osnos

Self-rule means that China must stop its intensive effort to colonize Tibet with Chinese settlers and must allow Tibetans to hold responsible positions in the government of Tibet. — Dalai Lama

On present-day Earth we have the most Christ-like nation in human history, a civilization built on loving kindness and demilitarization. They are being wiped off the face of their homeland. Well, at least the Chinese government isn't blaming Christ or Buddha for their actions against Tibet! But many savage pillagers throughout the past two thousand years have, and the Romans of a thousand years ago fall into that category. Within five hundred years they erased nearly all the nature-based, matriarchal tribes in what we now know as Europe. The invaders falsified history in order to justify their greed. Harmless facts and beautiful rituals were twisted to appear Satanic. Love of the environment and its animals and plants, love of healing modalities that modern day health professionals are now searching frantically to recover, were spin-doctored into demented superstition and turned outlaw. — Doug "Ten" Rose

I once heard Jerry Yang, the cofounder of Yahoo!, quote a senior Chinese government official as saying, "Where people have hope, you have a middle class." I think this is a very useful insight. The existence of large, stable middle classes around the world is crucial to geopolitical stability, but middle class is a state of mind, not a state of income. That's why a majority of Americans always describe themselves as "middle class," even though by income statistics some of them wouldn't be considered as such. "Middle class" is another way of describing people who believe that they have a pathway out of poverty or lower-income status toward a higher standard of living and a better future for their kids. — Thomas L. Friedman

Let me start with Yahoo. As we meet today, a Chinese citizen who had the courage to speak his mind on the Internet is in prison because Yahoo chose to share his name and address with the Chinese Government. — Tom Lantos

As a condition for entry into the Chinese market, Apple had to agree to the Chinese government's censorship criteria in vetting the content of all iPhone apps available for download on devices sold in mainland China. — Rebecca MacKinnon

The traditional Chinese kingdoms operated under centuries of constraints on commerce. The building of walls on their borders had been a way of limiting such trade and literally keeping the wealth of the nation intact and inside the walls. For such administrators, giving up trade goods was the same as paying tribute to their neighbors, and they sought to avoid it as much as they could. The Mongols directly attacked the Chinese cultural prejudice that ranked merchants as merely a step above robbers by officially elevating their status ahead of all religions and professions, second only to government officials. In a further degradation of Confucian scholars, the Mongols reduced them from the highest level of traditional Chinese society to the ninth level, just below prostitutes but above beggars. — Jack Weatherford

Three year sof unconditional MFN have not lead to any subtantial improvement in human rights, trade and nuclear proliferation practice of the Chinese government. In addition to the trade barriers, China has marred our trade relationship wit prison labor or export and other unfair trade practices. — Nancy Pelosi

I have had no contact with the Chinese government. I only work with journalists. — Edward Snowden

Perhaps the god who had made the Cat People intended them as a joke. They had schools, but no education; politicians but no government; people, but no personal integrity; faces, but no concept of face. One had to admit that their god had gone a little too far with his little joke. — Lao She

In 2007, as a condition for hosting the Olympics in Beijing, the Chinese government removed restrictions barring Beijing-based journalists from leaving the capital without prior written permission. — Evan Osnos

He had spent the last five years, he [JFK] said ruefully, running for office, and he did not know any real public officials, people to run a government, serious men. The only ones he knew, he admitted, were politicians, and if this seemed a denigration of his own kind, it was not altogether displeasing to the older man. Politicians did need men to serve, to run the government. The implication was obvious. Politicians could run Pennsylvania and Ohio, and if they could not run Chicago they could at least deliver it. But politicians run the world? What did they know about the Germans, the French, the Chinese? He needed experts for that — David Halberstam

The Chinese have certain advantages. The fact that it's a single party government. But I do believe in the long run the fact that India is a functioning democracy committed to the rule of law. Our system is slow to move but I'm confident that once decisions are taken they are going to be far more durable. — Manmohan Singh

Ratings to me are a little like the Chinese Government. I don't fully understand what makes a rating go. I don't know what makes the American television audience respond to one person and not t another. There very seldom are great differences between many television personalities. — Tom Brokaw

Shocked to learn of the serious attacks against certain areas in New York City and Washington D.C. on September 11, which caused horrendous casualty, I wish to express, on behalf of the Chinese Government and people, our deepest sympathy and solicitude to you and, through you, to the Government and people of the United States. I wish also to extend our condolences to the families of the victims. The Chinese Government has consistently condemned and rejected all forms of terrorist violence. — Jiang Zemin

Whether it's Baidu or Chinese versions of YouTube or Sina or Sohu, Chinese Internet sites are getting daily directives from the government telling them what kinds of content they cannot allow on their site and what they need to delete. — Rebecca MacKinnon

The Chinese government would yield to the pressure from its people: it would be forced to give orders to fight - to defend its motherland! — Andre Vltchek

Like it or not, Google and the Chinese government are stuck in a tense, long-term relationship, and can look forward to more high-stakes shadow-boxing in the netherworld of the world's most elaborate system of censorship. — Rebecca MacKinnon

The Chinese Government and I myself have always attached great importance to China-U.S. relations. In the new historic era, I look forward to working together with you to continuously strengthen dialogue and exchanges between our two countries. — Hu Jintao

The Chinese have made a faustian pact with the government, agreeing to forsake demands for political and intellectual freedom in exchange for more material comfort. They live prosperous lives in which any expression of pain is forbidden. — Ma Jian

The emphasis of my government is to take advantage from the Chinese experience in the fields of agriculture, fisheries, energy, infrastructure, development, health and high efficiency irrigation. — Asif Ali Zardari

How about this? Hong Kong had been appropriated by British drug pushers in the 1840s. We wanted Chinese silk, porcelain, and spices. The Chinese didn't want our clothes, tools, or salted herring, and who can blame them? They had no demand. Our solution was to make a demand, by getting large sections of the populace addicted to opium, a drug which the Chinese government had outlawed. When the Chinese understandably objected to this arrangement, we kicked the fuck out of them, set up a puppet government in Peking that hung signs on parks saying NO DOGS OR CHINESE, and occupied this corner of their country as an import base. Fucking godawful behavior, when you think about it. And we accuse them of xenophobia. It would be like the Colombians invading Washington in the early twenty-first century and forcing the White House to legalize heroin. And saying, Don't worry, we'll show ourselves out, and take Florida while we're at it, okay? Thanks very much. — David Mitchell

When Chinese people want liberal reforms, they are delivered. When they want more Communism and an epic fight against corruption, like now, China's government immediately reacts. It is powerful and democratic, although a very specific and complex arrangement. — Andre Vltchek

Chinese movies are not just about making Chinese local movies. It's about the Chinese money, the Chinese creativeness participating in a global movie. The problem is not the government not supporting this, they of course support this big time. The problem is whether other people are capable of doing the same thing I'm doing. — Bruno Zheng Wu

Chinese central government doesn't need to even lead public opinion: it just selectively stops censorship. In other words, just as censorship is a political tool, so is the absence of censorship. — Michael Anti

I think the Chinese government is doing a great job right now. — Alex Chiu

It was not so much a feeling of being insulted, but an overwhelming pain for the people of my native land. We were not treated by our own government as proper human beings, and consequently some outsiders did not regard us as the same kind of humans as themselves. I thought of the old observation that Chinese lives were cheap, and one Englishman's amazement that his Chinese servant should find a toothache unbearable. — Jung Chang

The Chinese government since 1979 has been very successful in economic development, and successful enough, simply by surviving, in the realm of political development. — William Kirby

The Chinese government sometimes shuts down the Internet and mobile services in specific areas where unrest occurs. — Rebecca MacKinnon

Hillary Clinton: putting big government spending financed by the Chinese ahead of good-paying jobs for middle-class Americans. Is she guilty or not guilty? — Chris Christie

The Chinese government launched China's first 24-hour news channel. And since the channel will only report stories that are favorable to the ruling party, they've decided to call it Fox News. — Conan O'Brien

The Chinese government tried to keep a lid on the SARS crisis, but there were 160 million text messages in three days sent by Chinese citizens. These are early indications that it's going to be difficult for people who used to have control over the news to maintain that level of control. — Howard Rheingold

Ai Weiwei, who is both a widely admired conceptual artist and a fearless human-rights activist, has been on the bad side of the Chinese government for years. — Terry Teachout

In 1995, the Chinese government picked a 6-year-old child to succeed the Panchen Lama, the second highest figure in Tibetan Buddhism. — Barbara Demick

Pilfering was common in Communist China's state-owned enterprises, as the Party secretaries were slack in guarding properties that belonged to the government and poorly paid workers felt it fair compensation for their low pay. The practice was so widespread that it was an open secret. The workers joked about it and called it "Communism," which in Chinese translation means "sharing property." Pg. 390 — Nien Cheng

The Chinese government does not engage in theft of commercial secrets in any form, nor does it encourage or support Chinese companies to engage in such practices in any way. — Xi Jinping

The Chinese government clearly does pay attention to public opinion expressed on the Internet - the extent to which they choose to adapt their practices based on it, or ignore it, seems to vary. — Rebecca MacKinnon

There is a long standing tradition of using code to evade censorship in China, so that goes on. The trouble is the Chinese government has created the world's most sophisticated censorship machine. — John Palfrey

One of the statistics that always amazes me is the approval of the Chinese government, not elected, is over 80 percent. The approval of the U.S. government, fully elected, is 19 percent. Well, we elected these people and they didn't elect those people. Isn't it supposed to be different? Aren't we supposed to like the people that we elected? — Bill Gates