Photo:Elizabeth Dalziel

Quotes from around China this week

“They’re wagging their finger and saying ‘This is your role, don’t forget it.”
- David Bandurski, editor of the China Media Project, on the Communist Party’s Propaganda Department requiring the country’s entire official press corps—more than 300,000 reporters and editors—to attend at least two days of Marxist classes this month. Wall Street Journal

“A corrupt official tends to promote other corrupt officials on the understanding that if everyone is corrupt, then everyone is safe. To promote a clean official is to sit yourself beside a ticking time bomb.”
- Professor Ren Jianming, a governance expert from Beijing University of Aeronautics & Astronautics. News China

“I didn’t want my son to become a book-cramming robot.” 
- A Chinese mother on why she sent her son to study in the U.S. New York Times

“Some hostile Western forces and media do not want to see a prospering socialist China and target the spear of Westernization, separation and ‘color revolution’ at China.”
- President of Xinhua News Agency Li Congjun. Reuters

“We shouldn’t make students undertake reflection and critical thinking too soon; instead, we should let them gradually accumulate knowledge.”
- Author Zhao Yu quoted in a Xinhua commentary supporting the removal of an essay by the father of modern Chinese literature, Lu Xun, from new editions of middle school textbooks. Tea Leaf Nation

"I don't think anyone in government understands creative industries. They spent 60 years driving creativity out of the system. To reintroduce it in 10 minutes is a bit hopeful."
- Paul French, chief China market strategist at market research firm Mintel, on why Chinese companies lack the innovative forces needed to produce strong international brands. The Guardian

“They just want us to make films about food, clothes, entertainment. They don’t want people to think, they don’t want people to have the freedom to express themselves, they don’t want people to have independent and free ideas. We are upset, but also find it absurd.”
- Independent documentary maker Yang Lina, on measures by Chinese authorities to limit the production, distribution and discussion of independent films. Asian Correspondent