Tim Clissold Quotes
At regular intervals in Chinese history it suffers complete collapse and the central government disintegrates.
Tim Clissold, Author & English Foreign Business Investor, Description of this Early Business Investments in China, Speech, The China Institute New York City, March 3, 2005
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
1st Earl Lloyd-George of Dwyfor. England had occupied Iraq, expecting to be welcomed by the natives, but like the George W. Bush ill-fated invasion almost a century afterward calls for withdrawal were met by the same rationale for maintaining the occupation. The English policy makers like the Bush administration were expecting a more welcoming reaction. See {585250}.
Note the importance placed on stability even in ancient China. This value even in the 21st Century preoccupied the Chinese government. Next to independence, it is probably the most important Chinese objective because China has seen so many periods of instability some of which killed more Chinese than the Germans did in WWII.
The Sultan of Turkey had just committed the Empire to a jihad against Britain in support of Germany in WWI: 1st Earl of Oxford
Gladstone received a telegram from Queen Victoria asking him to form a government and become Prime Minister:
A revolution in 1911 had toppled the Manchu Dynasty. The republican government which won the revolution then lost the peace and their President, Yuan Shikai, became a dictator and crowned himself Emperor. After his death in 1916, China was in chaos; crime, starvation, no law, with no real government was able to be established. Bland observed that Students had become very active filling a huge vacuum, but they became an obstacle to anything that was practically attainable and was less than perfect according to Western democratic notions. There were forces powerful enough to prevent a government from forming, but non strong enough to form one that could survive. The vast majority of the professional politicians were very corrupt. See {613111}.
Tim Clissold (Chinese name: 祈立天) is a Western writer on business in China. He is the author of a memoir detailing how he helped the Wall Street trader Jack Perkowski to invest, lose and recover over $400 million in mainland China as the country first opened up to foreign direct investment. His book detailed the numerous ways the fund lost money and the steps it took to recover it. Clissold was president of the foreign-invested ASIMCO Technologies before parting company from Perkowski, who claims never to have read the book that gave him the nickname Mr. China. Time Magazine described Mr China as 'an instant classic.' He has since written two more books, Chinese Rules and Cloud Chamber. The Financial Times Shanghai correspondent wrote of Chinese Rules: 'Read Tim Clissold, the British businessman whose book Mr China is probably the best I've ever come across about China. Now he has written another: it's about what makes China tick - for foreigners who can clearly hear it ticking but can't quite figure out why.' After leaving ASIMCO Technologies, Clissold founded Peony Capital, an orginator of carbon offsets used to finance renewable energy in China. He is a Senior Research Associate at the Cambridge University China Centre at Jesus College and a director of Henderson Far East Income. He undertakes dispute resolution assignments in China, mainly on behalf of foreign investors who have met difficulties there.
