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Comment by jackbravo | Hacker News Reader

Funny, in the same media outlet there are two different translations of the same speech. Emphasis mine:

The first one: ...we will never allow any foreign force to bully, oppress, or subjugate us. Anyone who would attempt to do so will __find themselves on a collision course__ with a great wall of steel forged by over 1.4 billion Chinese people.

The second one (https://asia.nikkei.com/Politics/Xi-vows-to-crush-meddling-f...): the Chinese people will never allow any outside forces to bully, oppress or enslave us. Anyone who tries to do so will __be crushed to death before__ the Great Wall of steel built with the flesh and blood of over 1.4 billion Chinese people.

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I think this is a translation of the phrase 头破血流, which literally means "head broken, blood flowing"[0]. This phrase has been used a fair amount in CCP literature under Xi. For instance the opening paragraph of this October 2000 article out of People's Daily[1], which was also released in English as "US interferes in other countries' internal affairs, threatens global political security"[2].

[0] https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E9%A0%AD%E7%A0%B4%E8%A1%80%E...

[1] https://www.sohu.com/a/427753259_119038

[2] https://peoplesdaily.pdnews.cn/opinions/us-interferes-in-oth...

Apparantly there are two "official" translations - one with the crushed to death added and one without.

The full quote is:

"We Chinese are a people who uphold justice and are not intimidated by threats of force. As a nation, we have a strong sense of pride and confidence. We have never bullied, oppressed, or subjugated the people of any other country, and we never will. By the same token, we will never allow any foreign force to bully, oppress, or subjugate us. Anyone who would attempt to do so will find themselves on a collision course with a great wall of steel forged by over 1.4 billion Chinese people."

With the context added, it is a bit more boring.

It's interesting to see how "头破血流" was translated in news. "头破血流" literally means "head broken, blood shed". Nowadays, it's both used in a literal and figurative way.

1. "男子网吧摔伤头破血流坚持打游戏直到晕厥" - A man fell in a Internet cafe, 头破血流(literal meaning), kept playing games until he fainted.

2. "为音乐版权打得头破血流值不值" - Is it worth (for music industry) to fight over copyrights that all parties 头破血流 ? It is used in a figurative way, meaning "to lose very badly".

> We have never bullied, oppressed, or subjugated the people of any other country, and we never will.

Isn't bullying one of their prefered tactics? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurting_the_feelings_of_the_Ch...

Not really? In my view, that's done from a posture of weakness. "You're hurting our feelings" is very different from "shut up or we'll break your face".

I mean, China does use bullying, especially on racially Chinese people who live in other nations. But I don't think this counts. It's still an abuse of peoples' good faith and good nature, but it's not bullying.

At best, "hurting the feelings of the Chinese people" assumes that everyone else has a "face" culture similar to China's, and therefore will respect the complaint. At worst, it makes China sound like an emo teenager, which is almost certainly not the image that they want to project...

Sorry the "crushed to death" was never in an official translation. But comes from various news outlets like CNN:

https://edition.cnn.com/2021/07/01/china/ccp-100-beijing-chi...

"Anyone who dares to try, will find their heads bashed bloody against a great wall of steel forged by over 1.4 billion Chinese people," added Xi, in comments that later appeared to be softened in the government's own English language translation.

It sounds like "we will bury them" all over again. Someone uses a carefully selected phrase that strikes a good balance of sounding strong without being overtly threatening, and then some translation strips all the nuance and everyone loses their minds. Reading the various translations in this thread give the impression that the intended meaning is something like "Anyone who would attempt to do so is gonna break their nose when they walk headlong into the brick wall of the Chinese people".

> We have never bullied, oppressed, or subjugated the people of any other country, and we never will.

At a minimum, Tibet. But I suppose if you take over a place, then you define it as part of your country, and so now you're not subjugating the people of another country...

And what bugs me is that, by the same logic, they aren't doing so with the Uighurs. And they weren't when they broke the terms of the deal with Hong Kong. And they wouldn't be doing so if/when they overrun Taiwan. It's all China, right?

> At a minimum, Tibet.

Cambodia? Vietnam (in retaliation for Vietnam’s contribution to the Cambodia thing not working out)?

I know it gets overlooked because it was in the shadow and aftermath of the US interventions in the same places, but they happened, and can’t even be swept up in the “But that's not another country” thing as easily.

Good point. I forgot about Vietnam.

This poster’s history is exclusively dozens of submissions and comment defending CCP and spreading misinformation (including debunked antivax myths).

Literal translation is “skulls will be crushed and they will bleed”

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