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We still insist, by and large, in thinking that we can understand China by simply drawing on Western experience, looking at it through Western eyes, using Western concepts. If you want to know why we unerringly seem to get China wrong... this is the reason.

A lot of Chinese don't understand why people in the West are critical of China.

You have to be willing to totally immerse yourself in China in order to have in-depth exposure to China.

China in particular is an absolutely fascinating place to be. Culturally and politically and economically it's becoming more and more relevant. If you look at how China is perceived in different parts of the world, you can recognize it's very dynamic. It's also challenging what it thinks of itself.

China is, indeed, in so many ways, not like the West. It is not even primarily a nation state but a civilisation state. Whereas the West has primarily been shaped by its experience of nation, China has been moulded by its sense of civilisation.

The Chinese culture belongs not only to the Chinese but also to the whole world.

I have been to China. I noticed that wherever you went, you could ask an ordinary citizen, and he would explain, in detail, about free markets and all the other jargon of liberalisation.

China cannot pull in the best and brightest from all over the world. It's an ethnically defined nation, the opposite of an immigrant nation. You don't see a lot of American engineers trying to be Chinese citizens.

People are not trying to get into China, they're trying to get out of China. The United States is the only great country where people are trying to get into to this country for obvious reasons.

One of the unique features of China is that, notwithstanding the fact that it has a population of 1.3 billion, around 92% regard themselves as Han Chinese. This is quite different from the world's other most populous countries, such as India, the U.S. and Indonesia, which are ethnically diverse.