I don't see why we need to stand by and watch a country go communist due to the irresponsibility of its own people.

I am against portraying China as the demon of the global community. China has grasped more quickly than other countries what globalization means and what it demands. The country has learned how to use other people's innovations for itself. India, incidentally, is not far behind China in this respect. Both are not nations in the European sense, but rather cultural communities with enormous markets. The challenge of the future is to work out how to deal with that.

In relations with many domestically weak countries, a radio transmitter can be a more effective form of pressure than a squadron B-52s.

People are generally amazed that I would take an interest in any form that would require me to stop talking for three hours.

The US must carry out some act somewhere in the world which shows its determination to continue to be a world power.

The first reactions are often instinctive. So one of the first things we said was that the Chinese had no right to inspect the plane, and that we had a sovereign right to. I don't know what the legal position is, but it was surely psychologically absolutely the unwise thing to do.

Left to its own devices, the State Department machinery tends toward inertia rather than creativity; it is always on the verge of turning itself into an enormous cable machine.