There is no realism without an element of idealism.

When I first saw China, there were no automobiles. There were no supermarkets. There were no high-rise buildings. There were no consumer goods. There were no restaurants that were at least accessible that foreigners could see. It was a Stalinist society, and a very poor Stalinist society. So the economic system has totally changed, and the private sector in the economic system is now the dominant sector. It didn't exist at all as late as 1979.

The capacity to admire others is not my most fully developed trait.

I see the future of China as growth. I think that historically China has often gone through periods of consolidation, and then periods of sort of weakening central authority. They undoubtedly face tremendous challenges.

I believe that there is a whole set of issues in the world - environment, proliferation, energy, cyberspace - that can only be dealt with on a global basis. The traditional patterns of national rivalry and national competition are not suitable for those cases.

The Russian empire under czars and commissars has been hard to deal with for other countries.

With proper tactics, nuclear war need not be as destructive as it appears.