Political Quotes

“But let me focus very briefly on why I think extension of normal trade relations with China is so important. If we go back to the Great Leap Forward, and that was with total government-managed control of that economy, there were 60 million Chinese that starved to death. We can condemn Deng Xiaoping for a lot of things, but one thing that he will be most remembered for is as the initiator of what he called Leninist capitalism, the ultimate oxymoron. But he did advance free enterprise in mainland China, and free enterprise has expanded so dramatically that our concern as a people, which is not the government, it is the Chinese people over there, and bear in mind that of 1.2 billion, only 40 million of them are allegedly Communists, and I think they are too bright even to be Communists, I think they are just bright pragmatists that have got a good thing going for themselves. But the fact of the matter is, more Chinese people today are enjoying a higher standard of living than ever before in the history of China, in its 5,000 years, and that is continuing to expand dramatically, and it is because of their commitment to free enterprise.”