The biggest obstacle in interacting with China is the difference in perspectives about basic values. These include issues such as human rights, the concept of law and constitution.
For all the tough talk about China during the presidential debates, Romney and Obama evaded any mention of China's suspect human rights record, corruption, and rule of law.
By not tackling these controversial topics, the candidates are protecting a strategic partnership with China at the expense of essential human values and beliefs.
My definition of art has always been the same. It is about freedom of expression. I don’t think anybody can separate art from politics. The intention to separate [the two] is itself a very political intention.
My mother became much older when I came out (ed's note: of detention). She had problems with her hearing and high blood pressure. But they still support me.
We should use this public sphere and redefine - beyond China's borders - what a government is allowed to do, where its powers end and where the realm of a citizen's privacy begins.
In a society that restricts individual freedoms and violates human rights, anything that calls itself creative or independent is a pretence. It is impossible for a totalitarian society to create anything with passion and imagination.
We never really see the global situation as a total situation. Today's political leaders are still lacking of the vision. They very often just try to cope with their own election, their own popularity, solving the problem or selling the ideas to meet their own voters. By doing that, it creates a great imbalance in terms of making deals or treaty or all those things. Even today the borders they're seeing the physical borders are very different from the political borders. Because all those powers are so connected, and you cannot even see whose interest in what move.
Widespread state control over art and culture has left no room for freedom of expression in the country. For more than 60 years, anyone with a dissenting opinion has been suppressed. Chinese art is merely a product: it avoids any meaningful engagement. There is no larger context. Its only purpose is to charm viewers with its ambiguity.