{"id":1648,"date":"2023-04-13T14:12:39","date_gmt":"2023-04-13T14:12:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ata-divisions.org\/CLD\/?p=1648"},"modified":"2023-04-13T14:12:39","modified_gmt":"2023-04-13T14:12:39","slug":"translating-qiangguo-into-english","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ata-divisions.org\/CLD\/translating-qiangguo-into-english\/","title":{"rendered":"Superpower or not? The challenge of translating \u5f3a\u56fd (qi\u00e1nggu\u00f3) into English"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"
By: Christian Lue, used under the Unsplash License<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

By: Ben Murphy, CT\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Edited by: Fang Sheng<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

As a translation project manager and editor, one of my jobs is to set guidelines for how certain \u201ctricky\u201d words and phrases should be translated. There are a great many such \u201ctricky\u201d or even \u201ctreacherous\u201d terms that I encounter when working in my usual language pair, Chinese to English.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

When translating\u2014or editing someone else\u2019s translation\u2014I\u2019m often reminded of that scene in the movie <\/a>Apollo 13<\/em><\/a> when the engineers at NASA assemble all of the same gear the astronauts have available to them, dump it out on a table, and say \u201cwe gotta find a way to make this\u201d (a cube-shaped carbon dioxide filter) \u201cfit into the hole for this\u201d (a cylindrical carbon dioxide filter). Chinese-to-English translation is often a lot like that. Fitting a square peg (the Chinese language) into a round hole (the English language).<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

One example of this dilemma that I faced involves the Chinese word \u5f3a\u56fd qi\u00e1nggu\u00f3<\/em>. The first character \u5f3a qi\u00e1ng<\/em> means \u201cstrong.\u201d The second character \u56fd gu\u00f3<\/em> means \u201ccountry,\u201d \u201cnation,\u201d \u201ckingdom,\u201d etc. Translated literally, qi\u00e1nggu\u00f3<\/em> is thus \u201cstrong nation.\u201d But \u201cstrong nation\u201d is a bit clunky in English, and as we\u2019ll see, there is some nuance to this term that a literal translation obscures.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

In December 2020, I published an English translation<\/a> of the Proposal<\/em> issued by the 19th Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) at its Fifth Plenum in October that year. The Fifth Plenum Proposal<\/em> laid down guidelines for China\u2019s 14th Five-Year Plan, the Outline<\/em><\/a> of which the Chinese government subsequently released in March 2021.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The word qi\u00e1nggu\u00f3<\/em> appears 15 times in the Fifth Plenum Proposal<\/em>. Broadly speaking, the Proposal<\/em> uses qi\u00e1nggu\u00f3<\/em> in two different senses. First, it can be used to describe a country\u2019s\u2014China\u2019s, in this case\u2014overall geopolitical status. The first mention of qi\u00e1nggu\u00f3<\/em> in the Proposal<\/em> is in the context of China\u2019s \u201cTwo Centennial Objectives\u201d (\u4e24\u4e2a\u4e00\u767e\u5e74\u594b\u6597\u76ee\u6807). The second of the Two Centennial Objectives is to \u201cestablish China as a rich, strong, democratic, civilized, harmonious, beautiful modernized socialist qi\u00e1nggu\u00f3<\/em>\u201d by the centennial (2049) of the founding of the People\u2019s Republic of China (PRC).<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The other 14 mentions of the word qi\u00e1nggu\u00f3<\/em> in the CCP Fifth Plenum Proposal<\/em> use the term in a slightly different sense, to refer to China becoming or remaining a world leader in a specific domain: a cultural qi\u00e1nggu\u00f3<\/em>, educational qi\u00e1nggu\u00f3<\/em>, talent qi\u00e1nggu\u00f3<\/em>, sports qi\u00e1nggu\u00f3<\/em>, science and technology (S&T) qi\u00e1nggu\u00f3<\/em>, manufacturing qi\u00e1nggu\u00f3<\/em>, cyber qi\u00e1nggu\u00f3<\/em>, trade qi\u00e1nggu\u00f3<\/em>, maritime qi\u00e1nggu\u00f3<\/em>, and so on.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

When I initially published my translation of the Fifth Plenum Proposal<\/em>, I translated qi\u00e1nggu\u00f3<\/em> as \u201csuperpower.\u201d After all, 14 of the 15 mentions of the word in the Proposal<\/em> were in the more specific sense, which I think corresponds fairly nicely to the way English speakers use the word \u201csuperpower\u201d loosely, as in \u201cJamaica is a track and field superpower.\u201d Here I followed the lead of my fellow Chinese S&T policy translators at Stanford University\u2019s DigiChina project, who advocate for the \u201csuperpower\u201d translation<\/a> in the context of the term \u7f51\u7edc\u5f3a\u56fd w\u01cenglu\u00f2 qi\u00e1nggu\u00f3<\/em>, which they translate as \u201ccyber superpower.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

However, after I published the translation, I received some pushback. Not from my fellow Chinese S&T translators, but from China foreign policy and geostrategy scholars, including one of my professors from graduate school! These critics argued that the English translation \u201csuperpower\u201d should be reserved exclusively for the Chinese term \u8d85\u7ea7\u5927\u56fd ch\u0101oj\u00ed d\u00e0gu\u00f3<\/em>\u2014literally, \u201cultra-great power\u201d\u2014not for qi\u00e1nggu\u00f3<\/em>.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Ch\u0101oj\u00ed d\u00e0gu\u00f3<\/em> does unambiguously mean \u201csuperpower,\u201d but it is used in a limited, pejorative sense only. Specifically, Chinese writers began using ch\u0101oj\u00ed d\u00e0gu\u00f3<\/em> during the Cold War to refer to the two superpowers of that era, the United States and the Soviet Union, and continue to refer to the United States as the world\u2019s sole ch\u0101oj\u00ed d\u00e0gu\u00f3<\/em> today. For decades, CCP theorists have criticized \u201csuperpowers\u201d for abusing their power and seeking \u201chegemony\u201d (\u9738\u6743). They never refer to China as a ch\u0101oj\u00ed d\u00e0gu\u00f3<\/em>, because that would imply that China is striving for world domination in a similarly odious manner.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

My critics made a very good point. If, one day, Chinese leaders begin describing China as seeking ch\u0101oj\u00ed d\u00e0gu\u00f3<\/em> status, that would mark a very big shift in Chinese foreign policy. But people who can\u2019t read Chinese and rely on English translations to understand Chinese policies might overlook this huge change in rhetoric if they are used to seeing the word \u201csuperpower\u201d in translations of Chinese official pronouncements.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Clearly, then, the square peg of qi\u00e1nggu\u00f3<\/em> doesn\u2019t fit neatly into the round hole of \u201csuperpower.\u201d What is a translator to do?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

My solution, which I continue to use today, is to translate qi\u00e1nggu\u00f3<\/em> in one of two different ways, depending on context. Where the term is used in the overall, geopolitical sense, I translate it as \u201cworld power.\u201d This way, I reserve the translation \u201csuperpower\u201d for ch\u0101oj\u00ed d\u00e0gu\u00f3<\/em>. Additionally, I think \u201cworld power\u201d sounds stronger than \u201cgreat power,\u201d the translation I use for the Chinese word \u5927\u56fd d\u00e0gu\u00f3<\/em> when it is used in this same broad sense. As my friends at DigiChina have noted<\/a>, a qi\u00e1nggu\u00f3<\/em> is essentially an upgraded version of a d\u00e0gu\u00f3<\/em>.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

However, when the Chinese text refers to a specific flavor of qi\u00e1nggu\u00f3<\/em>, such as an S&T qi\u00e1nggu\u00f3<\/em>, I translate it as \u201cpowerhouse.\u201d I think \u201cS&T powerhouse\u201d conveys the same meaning in English as \u201cS&T superpower,\u201d but without the baggage of the latter term. And this translation holds up even in instances where my Chinese source document makes a distinction between d\u00e0gu\u00f3<\/em> and qi\u00e1nggu\u00f3<\/em> status\u2014the latter being stronger\u2014in a particular domain. For example, I render \u5236\u9020\u5927\u56fd zh\u00ecz\u00e0o d\u00e0gu\u00f3<\/em> as \u201ca manufacturing power\u201d\u2014I translate d\u00e0gu\u00f3<\/em> as \u201cpower\u201d when the source text refers to a specific type of d\u00e0gu\u00f3<\/em>\u2014and \u5236\u9020\u5f3a\u56fd zh\u00ecz\u00e0o qi\u00e1nggu\u00f3<\/em> as \u201ca manufacturing powerhouse.\u201d Conversely, on the rare occasions when I edit an English-to-Chinese translation, such as a recent speech <\/a>by U.S.<\/a> Treasury Secretary Gina Raimondo<\/a>, I translate \u201csuperpower\u201d\u2014when used in the loose, informal sense\u2014as qi\u00e1nggu\u00f3<\/em> in Chinese.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I will concede that, by translating the same Chinese word in two different ways, I am violating one of my general principles of translation, which is to translate each Chinese term the same way, consistently, in English. But, in my defense, there are many other Chinese words that can and should be translated in multiple ways in English, depending on how they are used. \u5b89\u5168 \u0101nqu\u00e1n<\/em> can mean either \u201csafety\u201d or \u201csecurity.\u201d \u536b\u751f w\u00e8ish\u0113ng<\/em> can mean either \u201chealth\u201d generally or, more specifically, \u201csanitary,\u201d \u201csanitation,\u201d \u201chygiene,\u201d and so forth. In other words, not every square peg will fit into the same round hole every time.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Ben Murphy at ATA63<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Ben Murphy is Translation Manager for the Center for Security and Emerging Technology (CSET), a think tank based at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. He is an ATA-certified Chinese-to-English translator.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By: Ben Murphy, CT\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Edited by: Fang Sheng   As a translation project manager and editor, one of my jobs is to set guidelines for how certain \u201ctricky\u201d words and phrases should be translated. There are a great […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1648","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-translation","7":"entry","8":"has-post-thumbnail"},"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ata-divisions.org\/CLD\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1648","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ata-divisions.org\/CLD\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ata-divisions.org\/CLD\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ata-divisions.org\/CLD\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ata-divisions.org\/CLD\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1648"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.ata-divisions.org\/CLD\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1648\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1653,"href":"https:\/\/www.ata-divisions.org\/CLD\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1648\/revisions\/1653"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ata-divisions.org\/CLD\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1648"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ata-divisions.org\/CLD\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1648"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ata-divisions.org\/CLD\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1648"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}