[One for the weird file.] Untranslatable Word In U.S. Aide's Speech Leaves Beijing Baffled Zoellick Challenges China To Become 'Stakeholder'; What Does That Mean?
By NEIL KING JR. in Washington and JASON DEAN in Beijing Staff Reporters of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL December 7, 2005; Page A1 http://online.wsj.com/article/SB113391933493415775.html?mod=home_page_one_us In late September, Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick spoke to a packed house of the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations in New York. The speech's punchline: "We need to urge China to become a responsible stakeholder" in the international system. The words were in italics in the written text of the speech, and Mr. Zoellick underscored them upon delivery. He uttered the word "stakeholder" seven times in all. Chinese officials and academics, who had felt baffled for months about the Bush administration's true view of their country, seized on the term. There was only one problem: What does it mean? The Chinese language has no corollary for "stakeholder." Thus began the great translation scramble. Emails zipped across the Pacific within hours of the speech's delivery. The State Department kicked things off with its own translation, posted on a Chinese-language U.S. government Web site: "liyi xiangguang de canyuzhe," or "participants with related interests." U.S. scholars traveling in China found themselves buttonholed on the spot. Jeffrey Bader, a former top U.S. trade official who advised Mr. Zoellick before the speech, was in Beijing soon after. "I ran into people all over the place who kept pulling out tattered copies of the speech," he says. "I must have spent eight hours in total helping people understand its meaning," much of the time devoted to the "s" word. State-run academies sent scholarly delegations to Washington to decipher the new term. "We hosted several in one week," says Minxin Pei, a China scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a Washington think tank. "They arrived and said, 'What does this word mean?' " The bigger issue is what U.S. officials really want from China at a time when some in Washington say it is a threatening power that needs to be contained. The two sides are holding two days of "strategic dialogue" beginning today in Washington, with Mr. Zoellick hosting a delegation of senior Chinese officials. Mr. Zoellick's speech gave a long list of the Bush administration's concerns with China, such as its huge trade surplus with the U.S. and its military buildup. He suggested Beijing needs to address them in order to be considered responsible. Those in China who thought Mr. Zoellick was setting the bar high -- perhaps too high -- preferred a translation that brought out the downside to being a "stakeholder." Some scholars translated it as "participants with related benefits and drawbacks." That implied China's interests might suffer if it attempted to meet Mr. Zoellick's "responsible stakeholder" challenge. "America's conditions for China to become a stakeholder are still very rigorous," says Yuan Peng, a researcher with the China Institute of Contemporary International Relations, a Chinese government-backed think tank. [Chart] In publications and on Internet chat sites, others offered a rosier interpretation, suggesting translations with meanings such as "joint operator" and "partner." If Mr. Zoellick was thinking of China as a partner, he would be acknowledging an important role for Beijing in world affairs and hinting at common interests across the Pacific. "This word 'stakeholder' is relatively easy to understand in English," Wang Jisi, director of the Institute of International Strategic Studies at the Communist Party's Central Party School, explained last month in a leading Chinese magazine. "It means shareholder. As a shareholder, you have to carry a certain risk. If you and I cooperate, the share price might rise, and everyone will benefit; if you don't work hard, and you're not responsible, everyone will lose." Mr. Zoellick declined interview requests to comment on the matter. A State Department official said the U.S. is glad to see Chinese discussing what it takes to be a responsible stakeholder. "The point is the debate. We wanted them to have the debate," the official says. The word "stake" in a betting context first popped up in 16th-century England, perhaps because wagers were posted on wooden stakes. Later the term "stakeholder" referred to those supervising betting. The Oxford English Dictionary offers an American usage from 1890: "Betting was heavy, the stakes being Indian trinkets of all kinds, and judges and stake-holders presided with a great deal of dignity." The word became trendy in the late 1990s as politicians and others began touting "stakeholder capitalism" and a "stakeholder society" in which companies would work for the benefit not only of shareholders but also of workers and communities. The dustup in China over "stakeholder" recalls the consternation that followed President Bill Clinton's proposal of a U.S. "engagement" with China amid a rough patch between the two sides in 1995. Chinese who spoke English were befuddled by a word that could mean "both an exchange of fire and a marriage proposal," notes Yan Xuetong, director of the Institute of International Studies at Tsinghua University in Beijing. The phrase "win-win" was an enigma to many Chinese officials before negotiations in 1999 over the country's accession to the World Trade Organization. Now the phrase, whose Chinese translation is closer to "twin win," is ubiquitous in official Chinese speeches. Then came talk in Washington over the past couple of years of "hedging" against the risks of China's economic and military rise. "That one wasn't too tough," says Bonnie Glaser, a China scholar who often advises the Pentagon and State Department. "China is a great gambling culture, so the Chinese gave it four characters that mean 'betting on both sides.' " China's choice of translation is sometimes tailor-made for political aims. In a 1982 joint communiqué, one of three key documents that form the foundation of modern U.S.-China relations, the U.S. "acknowledged the Chinese position that there is but one China and Taiwan is part of China" -- at least according to the agreed-upon English version. But official Chinese translations use a word whose meaning is more like "recognized," which carries greater weight in diplomatic parlance. In 2001, a U.S. spy plane collided in midair with a Chinese fighter, sending the Chinese pilot to his death and forcing the Americans to make an emergency landing. After tense negotiations, the U.S. issued a statement in English expressing "regret" over the incident. Both sides agreed China could issue its own translation. The statement in Chinese used a word that means "apology." A Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs official says there is no official Chinese translation yet of "stakeholder." ================================================= George Antunes Voice (713) 743-3923 Associate Professor Fax (713) 743-3927 Political Science Internet: antunes at uh dot edu University of Houston Houston, TX 77204-3011 Reply with a "Thank you" if you liked this post. _____________________________ MEDIANEWS mailing list medianews@twiar.org To unsubscribe send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
