Photo: Reuters

Quotes from around China this week

“During the last World Cup, we had Paul the Octopus. I wonder if next year, there will be another octopus who can predict match results.” 
- President Xi Jinping at a joint interview with media from BRIC countries. Ministry of Foreign Affairs

“I lived in China from 1998 to 2007, and the longer I stayed, the more I felt that governance was a frantic effort to keep up with what was happening on the ground.”
- Leslie T. Chang on how the one-child policy is already essentially irrelevant, and that when it’s abolished, very little will actually change. The Atlantic

"Instead of the accolades he sought from China, Sixing Liu today received the appropriate reward for his threat to our national security: 70 months in prison."
- Prosecutor Paul Fishman after the sentencing of a Chinese national who illegally exported U.S. military secrets to China. BBC.

“Officials suspect they ended up in the water because farmers upstream have been throwing the pigs, suspected of having died of disease, into the river. Either that or someone is playing the world’s biggest game of Angry Birds. They’re not sure what it is.” 
– Jay Leno, host of “The Tonight Show.” The Wall Street Journal.

“We are workers, not slaves!” 
– Chanted by Hong Kong activists when the court considering a heated foreign residency case released their final decision denying permanent residency to domestic helpers. South China Morning Post

“China takes from us primary goods and sells us manufactured ones. This was also the essence of colonialism.” 
- Lamido Sanusi, Nigerian central bank governor. The Financial Times