Deng Xiaoping thought of himself as a great revolutionary and a great reformer. He had dismantled the Chinese communist management of the economy. In my next-to-last conversation with him, which was about six months before Tiananmen Square, he said to me that his aim would be the next phase to reduce the Communist Party to philosophical issues. And I said, "What's a philosophical issue?" And he said, "Well, like if we make an alliance with Russia. " Given his view of Russia, that was not the likeliest thing that would ever happen.
I've been preparing [Chinese Zodiac] for seven years, spent seven years on writing the script, spent over a year on filming it.
It is very much easier to work than to pray. Most of the missionaries are earnest workers. But are we all that we should be in the matter of prayer? Let us not suppose that just any sort of praying will do for China. We must all wrestle with God. 'I will not let Thee go unless Thou bless China. ' It must come to this if the conversion of the Chinese is ever to be an accomplished fact. Such is my conviction. Let me remind you that the greatest importunity is not incompatible with the profoundest submission to the Divine will.
If [Chinese] are going to rip us off, you wouldn't think they'd be building fortresses.
Over the longer term, China will grow by about 6% or 7% per year. The Chinese authorities usually react pretty quickly to unfolding economic events, and you've seen them recently change a whole bunch of policies to be more conducive to growth. They have the power and capability to macromanage the economy - to accomplish their growth objectives - which means they're pretty much going to come close to what they say is going to happen.
Americans believe that you can alter people by conversion, and that everybody in the world is a potential American. The Chinese also believe that their values are universal, but they do not believe that you can convert to becoming a Chinese unless you are born into it.
Never mind that to me, the face of Afghanistan is that of a boy with a thin-boned frame, a shaved head, and low-set ears, a boy with a Chinese doll face perpetually lit by a harelipped smile. Never mind any of those things. Because history isn't easy to overcome. Neither is religion. In the end, I was a Pashtun and he was a Hazara, I was Sunni and he was Shi'a, and nothing was ever going to change that. Nothing.
Justice for All in the World
You get a series of super-typhoons into Shanghai and millions of people die. Does the population there lose faith in Chinese government? Does China start to fissure? I'd prefer to deal with a rising, dominant China any day.
Like most actors, I've always been grateful for Chinese restaurants; they were often the only places that stayed open late enough for performers to get hot food after the show.
The Saylor Foundation is meant to be a gadfly to encourage Google, Apple, MIT, Harvard, the United States government, and the Chinese government to aggressively pursue digital education.
Making a martial arts film in English to me is the same as John Wayne speaking Chinese in a western
My great grandmother was Chinese.
Freestyle, especially aerials, fits the Chinese because we are good at gymnastics.
As soon as I began to talk to Dalai Lama, I realized that Chinese and Tibetans from his point of view are mostly the same. And as he pointed out during the recent disturbances, the Chinese are suffering under a tough government much as the Tibetans are.
We do see Gong Li, Zhang Ziyi and Chow Yun Fat, but it's very rare to see the Chinese male actor in Hollywood movies, which is something I take great umbrage with. You know, my son is Asian. He may want to direct one day; he may want to be an actor like his father - and I want that to be open to him.
To call yourself a Chinese artist or woman artist or African artist reflects a certain kind of condition. To me, that is not necessary.
Authors must not, like Chinese soldiers, expect to win victories by turning somersets in the air.
There are those who've been hacked by the Chinese and those who don't know they've been hacked by the Chinese.
The Declaration of Independence was only partially applied for women and for certain immigrants such as the Chinese. And it wasn't applied to get rid of corporate welfare and cronyism. People who had special connections got special deals from the beginning. So all of those violations of what the Declaration of Independence expressed, have led to the problems we have today. So, the sins of the fathers are visited upon the sons for seven generations, or much longer. Forever.