Business quotes about China offer a different angle on trade with the country, its economy, and its political system than statistics do. The statements below, from business leaders, economists, historians, and politicians, are all connected to China’s development and to doing business there.
We have checked the attributions, but a few quotations circulate under more than one name, so no guarantee can be given that every one is cited exactly. They are included because each offers an insight or an opinion worth reading, and because the best business quotes about China say something about the country’s culture and economy that a chart cannot.
Many people have commented on China’s rapid development, and Shanghai is where they usually picture it.
Business Quotes about China: Trade and Industry
These business quotes about China begin with its rise. “I think the rise of China is inevitable, because China has moved from a low-cost producer, at low levels of technology, to higher levels of technology, and because it’s very competitive, even in some high-tech products they offer at very competitive rates, much lower than their competitors.” Najib Razak, Prime Minister of Malaysia 2009–2018
“In China today, Bill Gates is Britney Spears. In America today, Britney Spears is Britney Spears, and that is our problem.” Thomas L. Friedman, New York Times columnist and three-time Pulitzer Prize winner
“My job is making money, helping other people make money. I am spending money, trying to make sure more people get rich, because you cannot spend a lot of money, right? So my job is spending money, helping others. This is a headache.” Jack Ma, founder of Alibaba
“If GE’s strategy of investment in China is wrong, it represents a loss of a billion dollars, perhaps a couple of billion dollars. If it is right, it is the future of this company for the next century.” Jack Welch, CEO of General Electric 1981–2001
“You know, without China there is no Wal-Mart and without Wal-Mart there is no middle class and lower class prosperity in the United States.” Arthur Laffer, American economist
Of all the business quotes about China collected here, the Welch and Laffer lines have aged most interestingly. GE’s China bet did not turn out to be its future; Walmart’s dependence on Chinese supply is now a tariff liability as much as a cost advantage. The quotes describe the era of unconditional access that ran from 2001 to 2018, and reading them now is a reminder of how much the terms of doing business in China have changed.
Economics and Business Quotes about China
Economics quotes sit close to business quotes about China, and these are the most cited. “A lot of people, including business leaders, think the future belongs to China. Globalization is not a zero-sum game, but we need to hone our skills to stay in play.” Jon Meacham, historian and former executive editor at Random House
“In China, when you’re one in a million, there are 1,300 people just like you.” Bill Gates, Microsoft co-founder
“China is a great manufacturing center, but it’s actually mostly an assembly plant. So it assembles parts and components, high technology that comes from the surrounding industrial, more advanced industrial centers: Japan, Taiwan, South Korea, Singapore, the United States, Europe, and it basically assembles them.” Noam Chomsky, linguist and political commentator
“Basically all the world’s computer parts come from the same supply chain that runs from Korea, down through coastal China, over to Taiwan, and down to Malaysia.” Thomas L. Friedman
Chomsky’s line is the one most often cited of all the business quotes about China, and it is the one that has dated most. It was broadly true in the 2000s. In 2025 China exported over US$200 billion of integrated circuits, is the world’s largest producer of batteries, solar cells, and electric vehicles, and designs as well as assembles most of what it makes. The assembly-plant description now applies better to Vietnam and India, which assemble products from Chinese components.
History and Business Quotes about China
History gives the business quotes about China their context. “Reform is China’s second revolution.” Deng Xiaoping, paramount leader of China 1978–1989
“China’s history is marked by thousands of years of world-changing innovations: from the compass and gunpowder to acupuncture and the printing press. No one should be surprised that China has re-emerged as an economic superpower.” Gary Locke, US Ambassador to China 2011–2014
“China is a sleeping giant. Let her sleep, for when she wakes she will move the world.” Attributed to Napoleon Bonaparte; the attribution is widely repeated but unverified
“When I was growing up, my parents told me, ‘Finish your dinner. People in China and India are starving.’ I tell my daughters, ‘Finish your homework. People in India and China are starving for your job.'” Thomas L. Friedman
“More than 90% of Chinese believe themselves to be Han. Of course, such a vast population is derived from countless different races, but because China has enjoyed such a long and continuous history as a polity, there has been thousands of years of mixing, melding and assimilation.” Martin Jacques, author of When China Rules the World
“Hong Kong is a wonderful, mixed-up town where you’ve got great food and adventure. First and foremost, it’s a great place to experience China in a relatively accessible way.” Anthony Bourdain, chef and author
China is less well known for its landscapes, which still make up most of the country.
Politics and Business Quotes about China
Political statements shape the environment these business quotes about China describe. “To survive, China had to open up to the West. It could not survive otherwise. This was after many millions have died of hunger in a country that was like North Korea is today. Once we became part of global competition, we had to agree to some rules. It’s painful, but we had to. Otherwise there was no way to survive.” Ai Weiwei, artist and activist
“Friends from the press, China needs to learn more about the world, and the world also needs to learn more about China. I hope you will continue to make more efforts and contributions to deepening the mutual understanding between China and the countries of the world.” Xi Jinping, General Secretary of the Communist Party of China since 2012
“Some foreigners with full bellies and nothing better to do engage in finger-pointing at us. First, China does not export revolution; second, it does not export famine and poverty; and third, it does not mess around with you. So what else is there to say?” Xi Jinping, speaking in Mexico in 2009 as Vice President
“The political restructuring we pursue in China is aimed at advancing the self-improvement and development of the socialist political system. We will continue to expand people’s democracy and build a socialist country under the rule of law in keeping with China’s national conditions.” Hu Jintao, General Secretary 2002–2012
“China has been committed to the independent foreign policy of peace and has developed friendship and cooperation with all countries on the basis of the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence.” Hu Jintao
“The rise of China as a new power is another great challenge for the US. Our failure to properly handle Germany and Japan earlier in the 20th century cost us and the world dearly. We must not make this same mistake with China.” Steve Forbes, editor-in-chief of Forbes
What These Business Quotes about China Tell a Buyer
Read together, the business quotes about China on this page trace an arc: astonishment at China’s growth in the 2000s, confidence in unconditional access through the 2010s, and, in the more recent lines, a reckoning with a country that now competes at the top of the value chain and sets terms of its own.
For a company sourcing from China, the useful reading is Ai Weiwei’s and Deng’s: the reform era was a deliberate opening that China chose for its own survival, it created the manufacturing base the world now depends on, and it can be adjusted from Beijing when circumstances change. Understanding the history and the business culture behind these statements is part of working with Chinese suppliers well, and it is part of what our product sourcing service brings to a supplier relationship.
