Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao:

Australian Prime Minister John Howard, on his country's relationship with China in an interview with the Financial Times:
"It's a good position to be in, isn't it? In China, there's a hugely valuable market for Australia and we'd be crazy not to tolerate the relationship ? With 400,000 people of Chinese descent living in Sydney, 15% of my electorate is ethnic Chinese."

Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing, on the beneficial aspects of China's trade surplus with the US:
"You may know that many American households celebrate Christmas with artificial Christmas trees manufactured in China. This benefits environmental and ecological protection in the United States."

Tang Xu, director-general of research at the People's Bank of China, the country's central bank:
"We think if the renminbi appreciates too rapidly, maybe a lot of foreign investors will move their factory or company out of China."

Joseph Cheng, a politics professor at the City University of Hong Kong, on Premier Wen's address to the National People's Congress:
"A lot of these disputes and protests have to do with the appropriation of land by the local authorities without adequate compensation for the peasant families ? [Wen's proposal] simply demonstrates an awareness of the problems, the willingness to help, but the actual impact remains limited."

From the US State Department report on China's human rights practices in 2005, released March 7:
"The government's human rights record remained poor, and the government continued to commit numerous and serious abuses."

From the report The Human Rights Record of the United States in 2005, published by China's State Council the following day:
"As in previous years, the State Department pointed the finger at human rights situations in more than 190 countries and regions, including China, but kept silent on the serious violations of human rights in the United States."

A proposal to the NPC, written by 48 top Chinese scientists, for a Cultural Revolution museum:
"The disasters brought by the Cultural Revolution to politics, the economy, culture, technology, mindsets and moral standards were more serious than a war … The entire German nation has won the respect of the world for its profound reflections about the Second World War. When looking at history, we should learn from the Germans, not the Japanese."

Zhou Shengxian, director of China's State Environmental Protection Administration:
"Under some conditions, development is like combustion. What's burned away are resources, what's leftover is pollution, and what's produced in that process is GDP."