I hope that I will be the last victim in China's long record of treating words as crimes.

I hope that I'm not the type of person who, standing at the doorway to hell, strikes a heroic pose and then starts frowning with indecision.

I can't imagine here would be a Chinese Gorbachev. But the party will gradually open up. For instance, it has already set a time limit for political reforms in Hong Kong. And in four years time, there won't be a strongman to name the General Secretary at the party congress. That means that the various factions will have to develop better rules for naming their leader. But there won't be a timeline for political reform.

The major wars that the U.S. became involved in are all ethically defensible.

Now the entire world has its eyes on China.

In China the underworld and officialdom have interpenetrated and become one. Criminal elements have become officialized as officials have become criminalized.

My tendency to idealize Western civilization arises from my nationalistic desire to use the West in order to reform China. But this has led me to overlook the flaws of Western culture.