China is a sleeping giant

"China is a sleeping giant, when she wakes she will shake the world", or "China is a sleeping dragon" or China is a sleeping lion, is a phrase widely attributed (albeit without evidence) to Napoleon Bonaparte.

The quote is often labelled as "attributed" to Napoleon or given with a warning that he may not have said it,^[1] but Napoleon specialist and Fondation Napoléon historian Peter Hicks declares that Napoleon never said "Laissons la Chine dormir, car quand elle se réveillera, le monde tremblera" (Let China sleep, for when she awakes, the world will tremble)^[2] and Australian National University historian John Fitzgerald states that

in all likelihood, Napoleon never uttered the words that legend now attributes to him about China, the "sleeping dragon." There is no reference to a sleeping dragon in his recorded speeches or writings and no mention of the terrible fate in store for the world should China suddenly "wake up."^[3]

The quote appears in various forms, as shown in the examples below.