Eyewitness to decades of progress

Deng’s former interpreter recalls big changes in ‘unexpected career’

UNITED NATIONS — “I’m very fortunate to have been a beneficiary, participant of and witness to China’s reform and opening-up policy over the past four decades,” said Chen Feng at United Nations headquarters.

As a member of China’s first generation of professionally trained simultaneous interpreters, he served as the last English translator for Deng Xiaoping, the late Chinese leader widely regarded as the “Chief Architect of China’s reform and opening-up”.

In a recent interview, Chen said he was an English lover though the language was not valued when China was closed to the foreign world.

He read English novels during work breaks and tried to catch up with English lessons via a short-wave radio. His passion, coupled with training introduced by the UN to China in 1979, led him to an unexpected career.

In 1981, he went to Beijing for a postgraduate course jointly organized by the UN and China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Ministry of Education.

“To tell you the truth, even many of our teachers had not heard of simultaneous interpretation as a term at that time,” Chen said.

Chen was in the second batch of students admitted to the training course. His classmates included the current Chinese Consul General in New York, Zhang Qiyue, and China’s former permanent representative to the UN, Liu Jieyi.

After graduation, Chen served as an interpreter for Chinese ambassadors in London and later was chosen to work for Deng.

Chen said that Deng spoke with a strong Sichuan accent using words or phrases that were innovative and groundbreaking. He often put forward new ideas in idiomatic terms that were a challenge for immediate comprehension and exact interpreting.

Chen still remembers vividly the pressure and awe an interpreter faced working with Deng — every word uttered by the leader was very important and could not be misunderstood by foreign guests.

It was a time when Deng’s phrase describing reform and opening-up — “crossing the river by groping for stones” — became a famous quotation, among other impromptu remarks.

At the beginning of the reform and opening-up period, many Western leaders had doubts about China’s policies and wanted to verify them through Deng.

Chen recalled Deng’s meeting with then Canadian prime minister Pierre Trudeau in July 1990, the last time he interpreted for Deng.

Chen said that during the conversation in the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, Trudeau asked: “Has China considered relaxing its immigration policy?”

Deng responded bluntly: “We can open it wide. I’ll give you 10 million people. Would you take them?”

Trudeau was stunned as the Canadian population then was only 30 million.

Growing influence

Having served in the UN for more than 27 years, Chen still remembers the first time when he went abroad.

It was in 1983, 12 years after the Chinese government regained its legitimate seat in the International Labor Organization, when a delegation led by Zhao Shouyi, then minister of labor and personnel, arrived in Geneva.

Chen was among them, interning before graduation.

The stipend per person per day was only about $2 at that time, with which he could only buy some BIC ballpoint pens. The small exotic “modern” gifts pleased his fellow students and friends at home.

He said the change over the past 40 years is remarkable.

I’m very fortunate to have been a beneficiary, participant of and witness to China’s reform and opening-up policy over the past four decades.”

Chen Feng,

Recalling the experience of taking his children to Europe 20 years ago and sitting on the Eurostar train, he said that it was a big surprise that after only 20 years, China could produce its own high-speed trains.

Mentioning terms such as “a community of shared future for mankind”, “the Belt and Road Initiative” and “green development” that originated in China’s own development, Chen said some Chinese concepts and initiatives have become popular concepts in global governance.

The China-proposed concept of “common but differentiated responsibilities” between countries is now one of the major UN principles for environmental issues, Chen said.