Key words altered in Chinese translation
A Chinese state media report on Sir John Key’s visit to China President Xi Jinping contains a ringing endorsement from Key that is not in the English version.
The former prime minister met Xi at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on Wednesday.
In a Mandarin story from Xinhua, China’s state-run press agency, Key was quoted as saying: ‘‘History will prove President Xi Jinping’s foresight and wisdom and outstanding leadership, and I believe that President Xi Jinping’s One Belt, One Road initiative will inevitably succeed.’’
But Key’s praise was missing from the English version of the same article.
Instead, the English story reported Key ‘‘voiced warm congratulations on the 70th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China’’.
It also said Key vowed to ‘‘continue to play an active role in promoting the understanding and cooperation between the two countries’’.
One Belt, One Road, or BRI, is the Chinese party-state’s initiative to create a China-centred economic bloc.
Key has been contacted for comment.
The Chinese state media has been known to take foreigners’ words out of context, or in the case of another former prime minister, Dame Jenny Shipley, to devise opinion pieces under their name that they did not write.
Key’s visit to China was against a backdrop of international pressure on Beijing over pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong. This week, Xi used a Chinese idiom to warn that any attempts to divide China would end in ‘‘shattered bones’’.
When Key was prime minister from 2008 to 2016, he made regular trips to the People’s Republic and was a strong advocate of the two countries’ relationship.
In 2008, under Helen Clark’s Labour Government, New Zealand became the first developed country to sign a free trade agreement with China.