Untranslatable Word In U.S. Aide's Speech Leaves Beijing Baffled
Zoellick Challenges China
To Become 'Stakeholder';
What Does That Mean?
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. (See the full text.) 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.
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."
美国副国务卿的措辞难住中国人
9月下旬，美国副国务卿罗伯特?佐立克(Robert Zoellick)在美中关系全国委员会(U.S.-China Relations Council)发表了题为“中国往何处去”的坦率演讲，其中包含这样一句话：“我们需要促使中国成为国际体系中负责任的、利益相关的参与者。”
对中国官员而言，这段讲话基本阐明了美国的立场。这句话在文字稿中用斜体字表示，佐立克在演讲到这里时也加重了语气。在整个演讲中，他总共七次提到了“利益相关的参与者”(stakeholder)一词。中国官员和学者将这个词视为了解美国对华立场的关键。
那么就出现了一个问题。这个词是什么含义？汉语中并没有stakeholder的对应词汇。
美国国务院(State Department)自己进行了翻译，发布在美国政府的中文网站上，这令中国人对“利益相关的参与者”这个译法困惑不解。
在周三即将开始的为期两天的中美战略对话上，预计关于翻译的问题还将再度提起。佐立克将在此次对话中会见由中国高级官员组成的代表团。
佐立克拒绝对他选择的措辞引起的混乱发表看法。国务院一位了解他的想法的人士称，佐立克将准备在会谈中回答任何问题。这位官员坚持认为，这个问题主要是概念上的，而不是语言上的。他说：“如果中国人只是机械地翻译这个词，这个演讲在中国同样会引起争论。问题就在于这个争论。我们希望他们有争论。”这样演讲就收到了效果。
在演讲发表后的几个小时内就有来自中国的大量问询电子邮件。到中国访问的美国学者也被人们围住问及该问题。前美国高级贸易官员、曾在佐立克演讲前担任他的顾问的杰弗里?贝德(Jeffrey Bader)不久后访问了中国。他说：“我在各地都碰到了手持该演讲稿的复印件来问我问题的人们。我总共花了8个小时帮助人们了解演讲的含义”，许多时间都花在了stakeholder这个词上。
有政府背景的中国研究组织向美国派出了学术代表团，希望了解这个新词的含义。布鲁金斯研究所(Brookings Institution)的中国学者裴敏欣说：“我们一周要接待好几批访问团。他们来了后都会问，这个词到底是什么含义。”
部分研究了美国国务院译法的中国学者不喜欢仅仅对“利益”的强调。具有政府背景的中国现代国际关系研究院(China Institute of Contemporary International Relations)的研究员袁鹏说，他们认为还应该指出“利益相关的参与者”所面临的风险。他们的替代词汇是：利害攸关的参与者。但这个词也不能令人满意。其它中国学者、政府顾问和研究人员在公开出版物和网络聊天网站中倾向于采用一些意思相近的译法。一个是“共同经营者”，还有一个是“合伙人”。
对有些人来说，这个问题很简单。
中国中央党校国际战略研究所(Institute of International Strategic Studies)所长王缉思上月在一份深具影响力的大陆刊物上发表文章称，stakeholder一词在英语中比较容易理解。它意味著参股人。作为参股人，你需要承担一定的风险：如果你和我合作，股价就可能会上涨，所有人都会受益；如果你不努力，不负责任，所有人都会蒙受损失。
不仅仅如此。一位上个月在《人民日报》网站上发表了两个长篇贴子的网民说，许多懂英语的中国人都不清楚stake holder这个词怎么翻译。这位网名叫做“大将军王0407”的人在帖子中称：“要更贴切的翻译成现代中文，显然是需要暂短的过程。”
Stakeholder一词是16世纪最早出现在英国的赌博圈子中，主要指赌金。语源学家认为，赌金最开始是挂在木桩上的，因此就产生了这个词。后来，持有赌金的人就被称为stakeholder。
中国人对stakeholder一词的争议同1995年双边关系严峻时总统克林顿(Bill Clinton)用“engagement”一词描述美国对华态度时所引起的分歧如出一辙。清华大学国际问题研究所(Institute of International Studies)所长阎学通指出，懂英语的中国人对既意味著可能交火，也有合作涵义的这个词感到困惑不解。
在1999年中国展开加入世界贸易组织(World Trade Organization)的谈判前，“双赢”一词对许多中国官员来说还不可思议。而现在，这个词在中国官员的讲话中已经几乎泛滥成灾。
还有美国过去两年里经常提到的“对冲”(hedging)中国经济及军事崛起的风险。经常给五角大楼和国务院担任顾问的学者格拉泽(Bonnie Glaser)说，这个词不是很难。中国有著悠久的赌博文化，因此将这个词翻译为“两面下注”。
中国在翻译用语上的选择有时会出于政治目的进行调整。在1982年发表的三个联合公报中的一个，美国“acknowledged”（确认） 中国的立场，即世界上只有一个中国，台湾是中国的一部分──至少按照双方同意的英语版本是这样的。但中国官方的翻译采用了“承认”(recognized)一词──这在外交用语中的分量要重得多。
2001年，一家美国间谍飞机在空中同中国的歼击机碰撞，导致中国飞行员死亡，美国飞机迫降。在经过多天的紧张谈判后，美国发表了一份声明，对此次事件表示“遗憾”(regret)，但双方同意中方可以发表自己的译法。中国政府于是选择了“道歉”(apology)一词。
中国外交部(Ministry of Foreign Affairs)的一位官员表示，目前中国尚没有stakeholder一词的官方译法。
中国学者现在认为，佐立克的演讲标志著美国对外政策制定者内部希望同中国建立建设性关系的人取得了胜利，压倒了希望遏制中国的人。对他们而言，不论stakeholder一词如何翻译，都表明华盛顿确认了中国在世界事务中发挥的重要而持久的作用，并看到了太平洋两岸这两个国家的共同利益。
中国国家主席胡锦涛的高级对外政策顾问之一郑必坚曾在10月末发表讲话赞扬佐立克的演讲──尽管有所保留。郑必坚经常参与中国内部有关对外政策用语的争论。他最先用“和平崛起”一词描述中国的进程，但后来同中国官员中倾向于采用“和平发展”说法的官员发生了争执。
郑必坚说，佐立克的演讲是明确无误的政治声明，确认了中国和平崛起背后的合理性，承认了中国经济改革的成功。不过，他也表示，佐立克同其他官员一样对中国共产党怀有某种意识形态上的偏见。
一位中国学者表示，郑必坚的讲话中所得出的结论是，中国自己认为佐立克的演讲有60%是正确的，40%是错误的。郑必坚从未具体提到stakeholder这个词。
奇怪的是，总统布什(George W. Bush)在任何公开讲话或上个月的亚洲之行中（包括在中国度过的两晚）都没有提到这个词。但他的高级中国问题顾问格林(Mike Green)在向媒体随访媒体通报时却重复了佐立克的“负责任的、利益相关的参与者”的说法。美国国务院的官员坚持说，布什对中国的总体评论同佐立克的讲话完全一致。
