Ai Weiwei Quotes
I think U.S. and China is a big opportunity, to be seen as partner or some kind of strategic partner maybe. But those kind of powers have a way of getting too big, then we'll have competition. And who is going to win the competition if U.S. cannot hold a strong ideology? And even the U.S. would've lost the ground to win.
Ai, Weiwei. Weiwei-isms. Edited by Larry Warsh, Princeton University Press, 2012.
Kissinger had observed in his unpopular view that he was saying exactly what the George W. Bush administration had officially said on several occasions. This response is quoted by those who use it as an example of how low the reputation of the George W. Bush administration had sank with America’s foreign allies. Kissinger was seen as a much more important and influential factor despite the fact that he had been out of office for over two decades. At the time, many American allies had given up on Bush and because he was so unpopular with Americans as well as foreigners, they assumed that his statements would not represent American policy or opinion as soon as Bush’s term was over. The new President of whichever party would, it was assumed, repudiate most of the Bush actions and try and rebuild America’s shattered reputation. In that scenario, Kissinger’s views would not only be more representative of American positions than that of Bush and his diplomatic representatives.
Shahin’s empire which he conquered for Khosrow II comprised all of the Middle East into parts of India. The Byzantine Roman Empire controlled everything from Constantinople to the West. They were the two “superpowers” of the day. It seemed to Shahin that no empire could ever be greater, but that is the common hubris of siperpowers.
Announcing his opposition to the covenant of a League of Nations:
In the aftermath of the Tienamen Square massacre of 1989, Congress voted economic sanctions against China:
This was a warning to Saudi Arabia that the United States might seize the oil fields. At the time we were not getting enough oil for domestic needs and the military in Europe and in Vietnam. The King arranged to secretly supply oil to the United States while maintaining to the other Arab countries that it was maintaining the boycott of the West.
They were both children of Queen Victoria of England.
Vladimir Lenin
The United States and England maintained officially that their stance was moral and ethical. And it was for most Americans and Britons. However, there were some, whose motivation was economically self-serving as this quotation suggests. The less control Japan had over China, the more other countries could freely trade with China.
Ai Weiwei is a Chinese contemporary artist and activist. Ai grew up in the far north-west of China, where he lived under harsh conditions due to his father's exile. As an activist, he has been openly critical of the Chinese Government's stance on democracy and human rights. He investigated government corruption and cover-ups, in particular the Sichuan schools corruption scandal following the collapse of "tofu-dreg schools" in the 2008 Sichuan earthquake. In 2011, Ai Weiwei was arrested at Beijing Capital International Airport on 3 April, for "economic crimes". He was detained for 81 days without charge. Ai Weiwei emerged as a vital instigator in Chinese cultural development, an architect of Chinese modernism, and one of the nation's most vocal political commentators.
