A new study shows that the official translation of communist China’s diplomatic statements may be sub-optimal and create misunderstandings, potentially leading to poor or even calamitous foreign policy responses.
According to Corey Lee Bell, a project and research officer at the University of Technology Sydney’s Australia-China Relations Institute, the People’s Republic of China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) translations are of inconsistent quality, and may inadvertently—sometimes perhaps intentionally—convey different messages from the Chinese source.
