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Why Wang Yi’s message to Marco Rubio may have been lost in translation
There has been much discussion about how to interpret an idiom used by China’s foreign minister in talks with the US secretary of state
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China’s top diplomat held his first phone conversation with the new US secretary of state on Friday, days after Donald Trump’s return to the White House brought more uncertainty to relations.
Since then, there has been much discussion about how to translate a four-character Chinese idiom used by Wang Yi when he was talking to Marco Rubio: hao zi wei zhi.
Interpretations of Wang’s message to Rubio – a China hawk who has been sanctioned twice by Beijing – have varied, from the foreign ministry calling it a warning to “act accordingly”, to a foreign media outlet translating it as “conduct yourself well”.
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So what was Wang really saying?
How it got translated
After the call, China’s foreign ministry released a readout in English saying that Wang had cautioned Rubio to “act accordingly” and “play a constructive role for the future of the people of China and the United States, as well as for the peace and stability of the world”.
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