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How Thomas Friedman’s Editorial Was Presented in the Chinese Media

An Original Article for Mei-Zhong Guanxi by Anton Lee Wishik II

Update on 8/31:  I have just posted a translation of an editorial written for China Net which was partly based on responding to Friedman’s article as it was presented in translated form.

In the wake of Black and White Cat’s excellent post on a translation of a New York Times article and this site’s previous work on examining translations in both the Western and Chinese media, the following is a brief look at two different examples of the republishing of Thomas Friedman’s recent editorial in the Chinese media.  It’s important to note that Friedman is relatively well-known in certain circles in China due to the popularity of ‘The World Is Flat’ which has been translated into Chinese and is easily found for purchase on the mainland.

By looking at which parts of the article were included, excluded, and altered, it is possible to gain some insight into how the Chinese media presents Western articles to their readers.  The two different translated versions of the article were republished by People’s Net (人民网) and Global Times (环球时报).

Points of interest:

1.    The title.  The original article is titled ‘A Biblical Seven Years.’  In the People’s Net version, the title has become ‘The New York Times: Compared to China, America is a Third World Country’ (纽约时报：与中国比，美国是第三世界国家). This is based on the line in the original and included in this translation in which Friedman writes, “Then ask yourself: Who is living in the third world country?”  People’s Net did include the original title as a footnote although they listed it as simply ‘Seven Years’ (七年).  Global Times did not include the Third World line at all in the title or body of their version.

Global Times chose to title the article ‘If You Want to See the Future, You Must Go to China’ (想看到未来，必须到中国去). This of course refers to Friedman’s last line, included in this version, in which he wrote, “I never want to tell my girls…that they have to go to China to see the future.”  This line was not included at all in the People’s Net version, illustrating the different focal points chosen by the two news sources.  The original title was mentioned by Global Times.

2.    The cost.  In both translations, the specific figure of $43 billion dollars that Friedman cites in paragraph 3 of his article as the cost of the Beijing Olympics infrastructure was not included.  In the People’s Net version, the entire paragraph was translated and only the cost was left out.  In Global Times, the sentence with the statistic was left out, but the next sentence was included.

3.    What to include and what to exclude.  The People’s Net version included Friedman’s line that “if you drive an hour out of Beijing, you meet the vast dirt-poor third world of China” (如果你从北京往外走，驱车一个小时就会看到中国广阔的、非常贫穷的第三世界).  Global Times did not include this although the line which followed on the rich parts of each country was included.  Global Times included the line “We [the US] have real enemies; theirs [China’s] are small and mostly domestic” although they left out the ‘small’ part (我们拥有真正的敌人，而他们的敌人主要是国内问题).  People’s Net did not include this line although the rest of the paragraph was there.

4.  What is irrelevant.  Much of the second half of Friedman’s article, which focuses more on US issues (the election, Iraq, Afghanistan, etc.) was not included in either translation.  John McCain’s name, mentioned once in the original, is not included in either translation.  Obama’s name, included five times in the original, is mentioned twice by People’s Net and not at all by Global Times (whose version was the shorter of the two).  The original article contains 14 paragraphs (disregarding the one line paragraph “Then ask yourself: Who is living in the third world country?”), four of which have nothing to do with China.  The People’s Net version included 11 paragraphs, 9 of which were related to China.  Global Times printed four paragraphs, all with references to China.  Obviously, some of this is due to editing and presentation.  However, an article which originally contained a fair amount of focus on US issues has become more geared towards China.  People’s Net did make it explicit that they were publishing an excerpt of the original while Global Times did not.

The original article can be found here, the article as republished by People’s Net (人民网) can be found here, and the article as republished by Global Times (环球时报) can be found here.

For some background information on Global Times, please see this article.

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