Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick’s speech to the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations emphasized that “we need to urge China to become a responsible stakeholder” in the international system. Unfortunately, there’s no word in Chinese for stakeholder — or many other words used in negotiations, as Untranslatable Word In U.S. Aide’s Speech Leaves Beijing Baffled explains:
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 communiqu?, 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.’