Qin Gang is the public face of China. Everybody reckons he is a significant improvement from his predecessor Jiang Yu, whose looks and mannerism often call to mind the good old days when Chairman Mao’s concubine Madam Jiang Qing ruled the world. Qin Gang, on the contrary, is a split image of Chairman President Hu Jintao, a new generation of Chinese leadership whose presence acts as a constant reminder of how and why China shakes the world.
Many people are not aware that Qin Gang has both the wit and the superb communication skills to match his good looks. I’m not kidding. The following incidents will help illustrate my point:
In a press conference on 25 November 2008, Qin Gang made this comment about the new Guns N’ Roses album Chinese Democracy:
According to my knowledge, a lot of people don’t like this kind of music because it’s too noisy and too loud.
The Internet in China is fully open and the Chinese Government manages the Internet according to the law. As for what you can and cannot watch, watch what you can watch, and don’t watch what you cannot watch.
On 9 June 2009, a BBC reporter interrogated Qin Gang about the justification for the compulsory installation of the Green Dam Youth Escort filtering software. Qin Gang replied:
Do you have children? If you have children or if you plan to have children, you will be able to understand why Green Dam Youth Escort is essential for protecting the children of China against harmful information on the Internet. Let me repeat this: the Internet in China is fully open and the Chinese Government plays an active role in promoting healthy development of the Internet.
A month later on 2 July 2009, another BBC reporter asked, “Qin Gang, do you have children?” Qin Gang nodded affirmatively. The BBC reporter continued, “I ask you because a few weeks ago, you asked my colleague whether he had children when he asked a question about Green Dam Youth Escort. And you said that the Green Dam Youth Escort is essential to protect the children of China, and my colleague would of course understand that if he had children. So now that the government has delayed the installation of this software, are the children of China, perhaps your children less well protected?”
To this Qin Gang replied:
Everything I need to say on the subject, I have already said, so I have nothing to add to the matter. Okay. Next question.
On 25 June 2009, a foreign correspondent wanted to know whether it was China’s new Internet control policy to block Google services including Gmail. To this challenge Qin Gang replied:
Let me ask you this question first. Is there a post office in your district? Wouldn’t it be more convenient to use postal services to send letters instead?
22 July, 2009 at 8:35 am
[...] by Underthejacaranda, quoting China Digital Times (apparently suspended), quoting Qin Gang, China’s foreign [...]
22 July, 2009 at 12:19 pm
It would be totally hilarious, if it wasn’t so sad…
24 July, 2009 at 2:11 am
This is the kind of mentality that we, the humans living in China, have to deal with every day.
24 July, 2009 at 7:26 am
Their crude overuse of the word “healthy” is strikingly similar to the Nazi leitmotif. The Nazis were obsessed with making Germany “healthy”. But at least the Nazis actually succeeded in doing so, at least physically, whereas the Chinese Communists spread disease and malnutrition wherever they go.
24 July, 2009 at 10:42 am
If the Nazis made Germany “healthy”, it was by killing many mentally handicapped ppl – it’s called euthanasia, and some good people opposed it. I wouldn’t want to sell the concept to China. The problem with too much “healthiness” is that it makes a society as stupid as cows. Cows can be very healthy, but they aren’t clever.
24 July, 2009 at 12:21 pm
JR, of course you know I agree with you entirely, because I of all people am hostile to Nazism and all of its present reincarnations, including American ones.
But it’s not just euthanasia; it’s also eugenics. As you might know, some of the first eugenics laws were American laws. Around the 1920s, when Hitler was still an obscurity, many Americans were forcibly sterilised under eugenics laws, and the Nazis modeled their eugenics laws on American laws of that time.
Margaret Sanger, the American founder of “Planned Parenthood”, believed in eugenics. She believed the best way to help the poor was to stop them from breeding. The Nazis based their policies largely upon Sanger’s ideas, which are still being promoted by America’s “Planned Parenthood”.
As the old saying goes, “Overpopulation means there are too many of you, and just the right number of me.”
24 July, 2009 at 12:28 pm
PS, JR, recently I’ve been getting the impression that you and I are more similar than I thought we were.
(Handing JR a GOOD Chinese cigarette! The quality of Chinese cigarettes varies wildly, but my favourite brand is around 30 RMB per pack, and I’ll refrain from telling the name because it would identify me too easily
25 July, 2009 at 4:49 am
[...] Read the original here: Memorable Quotations from Qin Gang « Under the Jacaranda Tree [...]
25 July, 2009 at 9:47 am
Tanks for the cigarette. My favorite comes at RMB 15, but I don’t mind a decadent prop once in a while either. Mild, tasty, and probably full of beautiful artificial flavors.
With all the current harmony, let’s not forget that we differ
- I’m an infidel
- I’m closer to Israel than you are (not simply for being a German)
- and tons of other stuff which I can’t remember right now.
*puff*
25 July, 2009 at 11:03 am
Actually I’m closer to Israel, because my co-blogger Ivan is an American and America’s government is under Israeli occupation.
Ivan is an infidel too, insofar as he does not believe that Obama is the Messiah.
25 July, 2009 at 12:15 pm
*puff*
27 July, 2009 at 9:29 pm
Lovely headline from the People’s Daily of 17th July 2009 – “Qin Gang compares Rebiya to Dalai: One is female, the other is male”
28 July, 2009 at 2:01 am
“One is female, the other is male?”
Oh my God! Don’t you know that in some countries like Canada, it is now a “HATE CRIME” to use such language against the “trans-gendered”? (Whatever the f— that ridiculous word means.)
13 November, 2009 at 1:09 am
[...] more memorable Qin Gangisms are available to those with free internet access. For those in China, you’ll have to make do [...]