WHAT THEY SAY

“There’s no need to apologize. Everybody grows up and I understand people say mean things when they’re young. But over time, people slowly find out that athletes are honest and would never put on an act on the track.”

Liu Xiang, Olympic-record holder in the men’s 110-meter hurdles, in an interview with 163.com sports channel Jiewai, saying he is glad the Chinese public no longer places such importance on the Olympic medal count. Liu suffered public ridicule after suddenly withdrawing from the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games due to a chronic foot injury

“Coexisting with the virus takes a combination of active measures. But we should do it in stages and not be restricted by existing policies. We can’t walk on eggshells because there are risks involved.”

Huang Yanzhong, global health researcher at the US Council on Foreign Relations and professor at the School of Diplomacy and International Relations, Seton Hall University in New Jersey, in an article for financial portal Caixin on the future direction of Covid-19 policy

“The child poverty rate measured against the absolute poverty line has been dropping since 2002, but that does not mean child relative poverty [generally children living with a household income of less than 50 percent of the national median] has been eliminated.” Zhejiang University Professor Li Shi calling for a more comprehensive system to measure and address child poverty at the Seventh International Conference on Poverty Reduction and Child Development held in Beijing on July 24

“Institutional openness is a neutral kind of openness. It means that you shouldn’t favor any one behavior [such as imports or exports], but instead allow the market to play a fundamental role in crossborder resource distribution.”

Jiang Xiaojuan, director of the School of Public Policy & Management, Tsinghua University, at the third China Development Forum held in Beijing from July 3 to 4

“There’s a serious surplus of capital in China’s semiconductor field and not that many quality projects and professional investors.”

Zhang Jun, president of CEL Partners (CELP) and former vice president of Huawei, warning against China’s semiconductor bubble, in a July interview with Sina China

“Only when we’ve developed more nongovernmental forces in society can we rebuild villages and truly revitalize rural areas.”

Writer Liang Hong on China’s rural revitalization efforts at a recent book fair in Hong Kong. Liang’s books about Liangzhuang, her home village in Henan Province, explore the deep-seated problems of China’s rural areas

“Real GDP growth dropped from 18.3 percent in Q1 to 7.9 percent in Q2, indicating a slowed recovery of the real economy that did not meet expectations. It also caused the largest gap between nominal and real growth since 2012.”

Chinese Academy of Social Sciences report

on the Q2 leverage ratio in July, warning against the risk brought about by slowed real economic growth and continued corporate deleveraging

“In some aspects, their work neither respects knowledge nor follows science. We cannot accept such a tracing program.”

Zeng Yixin, deputy director of China’s National Health Commission, about the World Health Organization’s Phase-2 tracing program of the Covid-19 virus, a focus of which is to investigate whether the coronavirus leaked from a lab at the Wuhan Institute of Virology

“The deadlock of the Sino-us relationship is fundamentally caused by the fact that some American politicians have taken China as an imaginary enemy.”

Xie Feng, deputy minister of China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, at a meeting with the US Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman in Tianjin on July 26