In July 1971, Kissinger made his historic secret visit to China, the first tangible realization of Mao’s long-held plans. The Chinese were coy about the Soviet threat that had driven them to reach out to the Americans. Foreign Minister Zhou Enlai referred only obliquely to “our northern neighbor” and “the other superpower.” Nor did the Chinese side initiate any further discussion on the issue of the Soviet threat. Were they really so terrified of an attack? During Kissinger’s subsequent trip to Beijing, in October, Zhou placed the Soviet Union on a list of six key issues on the substantive agenda, although he listed it last. After the Chinese declared that they were not opposed to improvements in American-Soviet relations, Kissinger concluded that they were displaying bravado and concealing their fear of the Soviet threat. Kissinger warned Zhou of Moscow’s “desire to free itself in Europe so it can concentrate on other areas.” “Other areas” meant the People’s Republic of China. But there were glimpses even then that the Chinese saw the United States not as an ally but as an obstacle. Referring to the United States, Zhou offered a hint of how the Chinese really felt about their new prospective friend. “America is the ba,” Zhou told Kissinger’s interpreter, Ambassador Ji Zhaozhu of China’s Foreign Ministry, repeating a term that would be frequently used by Chairman Mao and his successor, Deng Xiaoping. U.S. government officials who understand Mandarin—a small but growing group—have long known that many Chinese and English terms cannot be fully translated between the two languages. Choices must often be made by the interpreters about what each side really means. Kissinger’s translator told Kissinger that Zhou’s statement meant, “America is the leader.” This seemed to be an innocuous remark, and when taken in the context of the Cold War even a compliment. But that is not what the word ba means in Mandarin—at least that is not its full context. Ba has a specific historical meaning from China’s Warring States period, where the ba provided military order to the known world and used force to wipe out its rivals, until the ba itself was brought down by force. The ba is more accurately translated as “tyrant.” In the Warring States period, there were at least five different ba. They rose and fell, as each new national challenger outfoxed the old ba in a contest of wits lasting decades or even a hundred years. One wonders how U.S. policy toward China might have shifted had Kissinger been told that day that the Chinese saw Americans not as leaders, but as wrongdoers and tyrants. To this day we still have to sort out and live with the consequences of that key mistranslation. Some years later, I had the privilege of talking to Ambassador Ji Chaozhu. He omitted any discussion of how he translated the concept of ba to Kissinger in his otherwise chatty memoir The Man on Mao’s Right, which provides a rare insider’s account of how China’s Foreign Ministry viewed the opening to the United States. I asked if the word “leader” he used in English had originally been the Chinese word ba. “Did you tell Dr. Kissinger what a ba was?” I asked. “No,” he replied. “Why?” “It would have upset him.” If Kissinger had realized what Zhou meant by ba—if he had realized how China really viewed the United States—the Nixon administration might not have been so generous with China. Instead, the administration soon made numerous offers of covert military assistance to China—all based on the false assumption that it was building a permanent, cooperative relationship with China, rather than being united for only a few years by the flux of shi.
Interesting how things can be lost in translation and the impact it can have on global affairs in the decades to come. Obviously, this story is likely embellished to fit the specific narrative of the author. Nevertheless, I just thought it was a really good anecdote on how important context comes into play when translating for different parties and the words we use.
