Photo: Chinese Korean War Propaganda

Quotes from around China this week

“Going to the gates of the White House to petition may or may not be useful, but I know that going there to petition won’t get you in trouble.”
- A Weibo user speaking of recent petitions Chinese netizens have started on the White House’s website. Tea Leaf Nation

“In traditional Chinese culture we not only say ‘the same rules apply to everyone even if he is a prince,’ but we also say ‘senior officials have the privilege of avoiding criminal penalties.’ This kind of contradiction appears in the Zhu Ling case. We want to capture the murderer and convict her (or him) of the crime, but the key fact of this case is that when oral testimony is needed, senior officials have the privilege to avoid it; after the prince breaks the law, the fact is there isn’t enough evidence to prove that he violated the law. These unspoken rules for protecting officials have existed in China for thousands of years, and we are challenging them.”
- Zhang Jie, lawyer to 1995 poisoining victim Zhu Ling. Bloomberg

"If you want to use one word to describe the situation of China's mainstream intellectuals, it's cynicism."
- Zhang Mingshu, director of the political culture research center at Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. South China Morning Post

“Whether or not I deserved the Nobel Prize, I already received it, and now it’s time to get back to my writing desk and produce a good work. I hear that the 2013 list of Nobel Prize nominees has been finalized. I hope that once the new laureate is announced, no one will pay attention to me anymore.”
- Mo Yan. Tea Leaf Nation

“The Chinese are trying to be Europeans. They want to be global actors, and the way to be global actors is to claim that you have something to offer. They have good trade relations with Israel, but there’s a huge gap in terms of understanding the perceptions of the region.”
- Gerald Steinberg, professor of political studies at Bar Ilan University in Israel, on China’s attempt to broker a resolution to the Arab-Israeli conflict. Time

"The central government will handle it. It is guided by the ideas of Mao Zedong. Big countries don't want war and we're against war and this is what we've been taught."
- Duan Keke, an 80-year-old Chinese Korean War veteran, expressing confidence that the Chinese government would prevent hostilities from erupting on the Korean peninsula. CNN