The Chinese and their government are wedded to a different conception of society and polity: community-based rather than individualist, state-centric rather than liberal, authoritarian rather than democratic. China has 2,000 years of history as a distinct civilization from which to draw strength. It will not simply fold under Western values and institutions.

China is a nation with one of the greatest, longest civilizations in history. China is a nation that continues to teach the world many things. It is important, one of our important lessons is that we learn, that we teach, that we believe, is collaboration.

What is China but a people and their stories?

The future of China is a problem the very inverse of that involved in the future of Japan. The one is a country intoxicated with the modern spirit, and requiring above all things the stamina to understand the shock of too sudden an upheaval of ancient ideas and plunge into the unknown. The other is a country stupefied with the pride of the past, and standing in need of the very impulse to which its neighbour too incontinently yields. Japan is eager to bury the past; China worships its embalmed and still life-like corpse. Japan wants to be reformed out of all likeness to herself. China declines to be reformed at all. She is a monstrous but mighty anachronism, defiantly planted on the fringe of a world to whose contact she is indifferent and whose influence she abhors; much as the stones of Solomon's Temple look down upon an alley in modern Jerusalem, or as the Column of Trajan rears its head in the heart of nineteenth-century Rome.

[T]he backward homeland of my childhood has become the world’s second-largest economy... massive new cities... astonishing technological wonders. Yet... the world is... asking the same questions... comparing China to former Communist... autocratic... repressive regimes.

The Chinese are a great nation, incapable of permanent suppression by foreigners. They will not consent to adopt our vices in order to acquire military strength; but they are willing to adopt our virtues in order to advance in wisdom. I think they are the only people in the world who quite genuinely believe that wisdom is more precious than rubies. That is why the West regards them as uncivilized.

China has lunged into the 21st century, while India is still lurching toward it.

The Chinese are industrious, courageous, honest, and intelligent. They created the splendid ancient Chinese civilization. And today, they're firmly committed to the path of peaceful development and are making continuous progress in the modernization drive by carrying out the reform and opening up program.

Chinese are like Indians. They think they're close to whiteness. When they practice racism they even become worse than whites. There are even Blacks who mimic whiteness. All of this needs to be confronted.

China is referred to as the ‘dragon’ and India as an ‘elephant’. But we are not an elephant, we are a ‘beehive’.

The issue before us is whether the 21st century belongs to China. And I would say that China will be preoccupied with enormous problems internally, domestically with its immediate environment, and that I have enormous difficulty imagining it will be dominated by China, and indeed, as I will conclude, I believe that the concept that some country will dominate the world, is in itself a misunderstanding of the world in which we now live...In the geopolitical situation, China historically has been surrounded by a group of smaller countries, which themselves were not individually able to threaten China, but which united, could cause a threat to China, and therefore historically, Chinese foreign policy can be described as "barbarian management". So China had never had to deal in a world of countries of approximately equal strength, and so to adjust to such a world, is in itself a profound challenge to China, which now has 14 countries on its borders, some of which are small, but can project their nationality into China, some of which are large, and historically significant, so that any attempt by Chinese to dominate the world, would evoke a counter-reaction that would be disastrous for the peace of the world.

Ah, China is a formidable country. An Asian can't help but love China and take pride in it. China doesn't export tanks and men. It exports dignity and respect.

China is the classic case in point. It is not even mainly a nation-state.It is, first and foremost a Civilisation-state, a concept that the West has not begun to try and understand.

China believes it is the center of the universe. Look at its flag: one big star surrounded by satellite stars. Arrogant!