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“Tibetan people cherish their current happy life as they cherish their eyes.”

– Nyima Cering, Vice Chairman of Tibet Autonomous Region

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‘blame the foreigner’ and ‘pick on the one who is different’ are common themes even with groups of adult students. All it takes is some group of people getting slightly frustrated about something and some hot-head shouting “it’s the foreigner’s fault” for things to turn nasty. I’m not joking, we all saw how people started to act after the rumour about how the CIA starting SARS came out. All it would take is some economic crisis or some such and government ministers whispering on the side that it was the foreigners fault and the next thing you know it’ll be helicopters-from-the-roof evacuation time. Don’t fool yourself that there aren’t a lot of people in China who feel a strong dislike for foreigners and that there aren’t an even greater number of people who would be willing to lead along by the mob.

– FOARP, taken from a Sinocidal Post

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“I have spent the last decade telling foreigners that China is not as repressive and totalitarian as Western media often portray it to be. At the end of the day I hoped that if we had an open, intelligent conversation, we would be accepted. But I think we miscalculated, or they miscalculated.”

– Nick Young, Editor of China Development Brief (closed by Beijing police for conducting “unauthorized surveys,” which they deemed a violation of a 1983 law on gathering statistics. The newsletter does not conduct polls or surveys.)

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“I’m convinced after spending three weeks in China and Tibet, unless the United States gets its act together, our grandchildren will be living in a world dominated by the People’s Republic. China is simply inexorable in its pursuit of wealth, growth and power. It cares little about human rights, democracy, labor protections, fair trade rules or the environment. It is relentless in advancing its national interests.”

– Mort Kondracke, Roll Call

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“I hate this fuckin’ place”

– Stage technician for the Christina Aguilera concert in Shanghai, on his first day, after a fight with a crowd wanting his stage pass.

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“China has not started any wars lately”

– Financial Times columnist Gideon Rachman

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Keeping foreigners out of certain business areas, playing them off against one another, threatening to deny business opportunities to those whose governments harass Beijing – none of these are new policies of the Chinese government. Rather, they are part of highly evolved and generally successful traditions.

– Burnstein & de Keijzer, ‘Big Dragon: China’s Future’

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Surprisingly, this wasn’t said with China in mind… but it applies equally:

Occam’s Razor is the idea that when confronted with competing theories that explain certain data equally well, the simplest one is usually correct. It’s called Occam’s Razor, and not Occam’s Hypothesis, or Occam’s Theorem, or Occam’s Bit of Useful Advice, because it is a razor — it cuts cleanly and with great efficiency. And though it pains me to say so, this culture is in desperate need of a shave.

– Bill Whittle

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The next time somebody tells you China has 5000 years of history, ask them if they think that’s already enough. China has had a good run, but what’s the point of it going on for any longer? If China was a sitcom it would be in its 17th season by now, and would have jumped the shark a long time ago.

– Yellow Wings

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Although your seas have pearls, we will throw them into the rivers, and though your mountains produce gold, we will throw it into the dust. We do not covet your valuables. You fly and leap like savages, we have horse-drawn carriages. You drink through your noses, we have rice and wine. Let us change your customs. You cut your hair, we wear hats; when you talk, you sound like birds. We have examinations and books. Let us teach you the knowledge of the proper laws … Do you not want to escape from the savagery of the outer islands and gaze upon the house of civilization? Do you want to discard your garments of leaves and grass and wear flowered robes embroidered with mountains and dragons? Have you understood?

– the Chinese Song Emperor Taizong to King Le Hoan in AD 979, just over a decade after Vietnam first reasserted its independence.

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Never in the field of Human Endeavour, has so little been achieved by so many, for so long.

– Some Famous Guy, upon seeing China for the first time.

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As long as Party organisations around Tibet remain pure, strong and capable of fighting, the disturbance caused by the splittist forces is nothing to us … We should never give up our education and guidance to the people and should not allow a laissez-faire attitude towards religions under the pretext that people are free to profess a religion. Communists are not allowed to have any religious belief, much less participation in religious activities.

– Party Secretary (Tibet) Chen Kuiyuan
(thanks to Far Outliers for the quote)

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A functional health-care system does not contribute to ‘peaceful development with Chinese characteristics’, or as we would say: ‘gearing up for war’. You just don’t understand this important aspect of a ‘harmonious society’. That means you don’t like China.

– StrandedMariner

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.