Daily Inspiration Quote by Li Peng

“Normal” is doing the heavy lifting here, less a description than a verdict. Li Peng’s line tries to launder a politically radioactive subject - arms sales, military cooperation, the machinery of coercion - through the language of routine diplomacy. By framing “military trade” as “undoubtedly” part of “normal State-to-State relations,” he’s not arguing so much as closing the argument. “Undoubtedly” functions like a door latch: you’re not invited to debate the premise, only to accept the administrative reality it claims to name.

The subtext is defensive and strategic. When a government insists something is normal, it’s usually because someone else has been calling it abnormal: sanctions, international outrage, human-rights criticism, or fears of regional destabilization. Li Peng, best known internationally for the Tiananmen-era hard line, speaks in a register that treats moral questions as procedural noise. The sentence is engineered to move the conversation away from ethics (Should this happen?) toward protocol (Isn’t this what states do?).

Contextually, it’s the Cold War and post-Cold War diplomatic marketplace: recognition, trade, and weapons deals intertwined with legitimacy. For Beijing, military trade can be leverage, revenue, and a sign that China is treated as a peer rather than a pariah. The phrase “State-to-State” is also a quiet rebuke to civil society and transnational pressure. It draws a hard boundary around who gets a say: governments talk to governments; everyone else can watch from outside the room.