Sound bites

"China has shown great developing potential, which might have scared some countries due to the lack of mutual understanding. So it's a big mission and my work is for foreigners (to better understand China)."

Ezra F. Vogel, former director of the Fairbank Center for East Asian Studies at Harvard University and author of Deng Xiaoping and the Transformation of China.

"With the development of globalization, the East has to meet the West and the West has to meet the East. The Confucius Institute offers a convenient channel for Germans to learn about China in regards to East-West communication."