礼之用，和为贵: “In the practice of the rites, harmony is most precious.” The line is in the first book of the Analects. It is often quoted as Confucius, but the speaker is his disciple Youzi.
The passage continues with a limit: “To know harmony and seek harmony, without regulating it by the rites, will not work either.”
On October 25, 1978, at a press conference in Tokyo, a Japanese reporter asked Deng Xiaoping about the Diaoyu Islands. Deng said that the two sides had set the question aside when they normalized relations. “It does not matter if such a question is set aside for a while, even for ten years.”
He added: “Our generation is not wise enough. Our next generation will surely be wiser than us. They will always find a good way, acceptable to all, to solve this question.”
再说 Let’s talk about it later. Literally “speak again.” Used to put a decision off.
从长计议 To plan for the long term. Not to decide now.
好说 Easy to discuss. A modest, polite phrase. It can also mean “that can be arranged.”
推三阻四 To push three and block four. To give one excuse after another.
敷衍 To deal with something only on the surface.
China’s People’s Mediation Law was adopted on August 28, 2010, and took effect on January 1, 2011. Mediation committees in villages, neighborhoods and companies help the parties reach agreement “through persuasion, guidance and similar methods.” They charge nothing. If the parties see no need for a written agreement, they may agree orally, and the mediator records it.
At the end of 2009, China had more than 823,000 people’s mediation organizations. In the previous five years, they had handled more than 29 million civil disputes and settled 27.95 million.