A Soviet head of state and General Secretary who threatened the West. A Japanese prime minister who ignored a diplomatic note. A U.S. president who had too much passion for Poland. Maori who sought the protection of the Queen of England. And a Chinese premier who liked to consider things at length. Or is that what really happened? Here, you can read about the top five translation mistakes that led to diplomatic rifts.
1. Japan and the Potsdam Conference: Ignore or hold back?
It is July 1945 in Potsdam, Berlin, and Second World War has ended in Europe. But not in the Pacific. The Empire of Japan, which sided with Nazi Germany in the war, continued to resist defeat. The victorious powers meeting near Berlin demanded that Japan surrender. Failing that, they threatened the Far Eastern Empire with “prompt and utter destruction.” The Japanese Prime Minister at the time, Kantaro Suzuki, responded to this demand with the Japanese word “mokusatsu.” A word that can only be described as being heavy with meaning, “mokusatsu” can mean “to ignore,” or “to treat with silent contempt,” but it can also mean “withhold comment.” Western media tend to interpret “mokusatsu” as Japan’s position of ignoring the call to surrender. The events that took place a few weeks later are recorded in every history book: on August 6 and 8, 1945, atomic bombs were dropped on the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
2. Jimmy Carter’s passion for Poland: And the tale of the silent translator
It was a minor sensation: It was in 1977, at the height of the Cold War, when US President Jimmy Carter decided to visit an Eastern bloc country: Poland. Unfortunately, the interpreter tasked with translating from English into Polish wasn’t particularly good. Carter’s curiosity to learn more about the future aspirations of the Polish people was somehow translated into sexual lust. And when Carter said that he “left the United States this morning,” the phrase was translated as if Carter intended never to return. Things went from bad to worse during the rest of the state visit. The substitute translator decided to play it safe by simply ceasing to interpret anything at a state banquet. To this day, President Carter’s visit to Poland remains a topic of Polish jokes.
3. The subjects of the Queen of England: The Maori and the missionary
The Maori chiefs in New Zealand were fed up. They were tired of being constantly threatened by convicts, sailors, and robbers. In 1840, they signed a treaty with Great Britain. Or rather, two versions of the same treaty. This is because the copy for the British differed substantially in diplomatic terms from the translation they received. The text for the Maori, which just happened to be translated by a British missionary, stated that the Maori should not cede their sovereignty but merely the power to govern to the British Crown. This was supposed to mean self-government and protection from the invaders, but not a complete loss of sovereignty. The version for the British, on the other hand, stated that the Maori would “cede absolutely and without reservation all the rights and powers of sovereignty to her Majesty the Queen of England.” Generations later, this Treaty of Waitangi was to cause unrest in relations between the Maori and the British.
4. Chinese wisdom: The meditative prime minister
Richard Nixon had big plans for China. In 1972, he wanted to improve diplomatic relations with the People’s Republic of China, which would involve a shift in its position toward its ally Taiwan. The U.S. pledged to withdraw its forces, which had until then been stationed on the island to protect Taiwan, and Nixon and his Chinese counterparts agreed on the “One China Policy.” This was based on the understanding that there can only be one China and not two Chinese states. When Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai was asked during the Nixon visit what he thought about the French Revolution, he is reputed to have replied that it was “too early to say.” This is a misunderstanding in which translation also played a part. That’s because Zhou Enlai was not referring to the Revolution of 1789, but to demonstrations that had occurred in France four years previously. However, the statement is often misinterpreted as a – not entirely unproblematic – stereotype for long-term Chinese thinking.
5. A declaration of war that wasn’t: Trouble for Nikita
We are back on Polish territory. Specifically, in the Polish embassy in Moscow. The year was 1956, and Nikita Khrushchev, CPSU General Secretary, and a rather affable politician, was a guest. In front of Western diplomats, the Soviet politician uttered the fateful phrase: “We will bury you.” A direct and unmistakable threat. Or was it? To interpret the sentence correctly, one must go back and look into history. That’s because – far from issuing warlike threats – Khrushchev, who was naturally well-versed in Marxist theories, was simply repeating Karl Marx’s assertion that the working classes would overthrow the bourgeoisie. Marx wrote in the Communist Manifesto: “What the bourgeoisie therefore produces, above all, are its own grave-diggers.” Years later, during a visit to Yugoslavia, Khrushchev quipped that he got “into trouble” because of this sentence. So, he set the record straight. However, it took seven years for this to happen.
As our examples demonstrate, translations may be just a linguistic recording of a brief moment, a sentence, perhaps casually shouted into a room. However, our examples also show that they can sometimes have an impact for years, can scupper political agreements, turn politicians into laughing stocks, or even have serious consequences for peace.
