Quotable

"China still has the potential to grow at 8 percent a year for the next 20 years. To exploit this potential, China must maintain social stability, improve the income distribution system and eradicate corruption."

Justin Yifu Lin, former chief economist and senior vice-president of the World Bank, saying during the recent Financial Street Forum in Beijing that removing protection and subsidies for state-owned companies in capital-intensive sectors is vital to improving income distribution.

"When children appear at auto shows posing in bikinis, it implants in their minds such an idea that the female form is a marketing tool, which is harmful for their development."

Shang Xiaoyuan, a professor at the Beijing Normal University and a child welfare expert, saying that having a child expose his or her body in public was offensive. Shang's comments came after the public outcry over the online photographs of young girls being paraded at the Chutian Auto Culture Festival in Wuhan in Hubei province.

"It's unnecessary to criticize the emigration of entrepreneurs. What China should do is to further improve itself."

Bai Yansong, a China Central Television commentator, responding to reports that Zhang Lan, the chairwoman of South Beauty Group, may have emigrated from China. The "secret" migration of Zhang, the founder of the upscale dining chain, has triggered controversy as she had expressed her extreme love for China on several previous occasions.

(China Daily 11/23/2012 page2)