"The Chinese Government has always called for the early repatriation of Chinese terrorist suspects and opposed other nations taking those inmates."

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang at a regular press briefing on December 23, 2008, when commenting on Germany's offer to take in foreign detainees, including 17 Chinese members of the UN-listed terrorist group of East Turkistan Islamic Movement, from the U.S. military base of Guantanamo

"They're on an actual mission, which could potentially involve combat, albeit of low intensity. That's a real difference. This is not a dangerous mission-actually, it's the perfect coming out party for the Chinese navy."

Lyle Goldstein, Director of the China Maritime Studies Institute at the U.S. Naval War College, welcoming China's decision to send warships to battle pirates off Somalia

"We can be hurt, but we will never fall."

Ratan Tata, Chairman of Tata Group that owns the iconic Taj Mahal hotel in Mumbai. The hotel reopened on December 21, 2008, after militants stormed the building on November 26

"It bothers me that the institutes in their studies try to outdo each other with more pessimistic scenarios."

Wolfgang Sprissler, head of the German bank HypoVereinsbank, saying that the doom-and-gloom forecasts about the current global financial crisis are overblown in an interview with the Sueddeutsche Zeitung on December 22, 2008

"If Americans give up plans to deploy the third positioning region and other elements of the strategic missile defense system then certainly we will adequately respond to it."

Colonel-General Nikolai Solovtsov, Commander of Russia's strategic missile forces, quoted by Interfax news agency on December 19, 2008