"While around 86.8 percent of elderly people in cities receive a monthly pension, in rural areas only 18.7 percent do. Seniors in the countryside mainly live on support from their families or proceeds from renting out farmland."

Ma Li, former Director of the China Population and Development Research Center, at a recent forum on an aging society in Beijing

"We hope people from both sides of the Taiwan Straits, especially the young generation, will better understand each other and strengthen their common national identity and sense of belonging."

Fan Liqing, spokeswoman of the State Council Taiwan Affairs Office, at a regular press conference in Beijing on November 13

"Undoubtedly, the establishment of a state security committee has made terrorists, separatists, and extremists nervous."

Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Qin Gang, at a press meeting in Beijing on November 13

"An eased policy would not compromise the nation's long-term goal of achieving low population growth."

Yuan Xin, a professor of population studies at Nankai University in Tianjin, on the news that the Central Government may fine-tune its family planning policy