When is initial not initial? -China's yaun revaluation lost in translation

[Dover]

When is initial not initial?
By David M Lenard

HUA HIN, Thailand - So far this week, the People's Bank of China (PBoC), China's central bank, has issued two major statements in an attempt to clarify questions that had arisen after last week's "Thursday surprise" revaluation of the yuan. The first statement, which gave written responses to questions submitted by the media, provided (on careful reading) several interesting insights into the thinking of the PBoC and the Chinese government as they transition the country to a new currency regime. But the most recent statement, whose official English translation was only posted on the central bank's website the afternoon of July 26, appears to be an attempt to counteract the effects of a widely quoted remark PBoC chairman Zhou Xiaochuan is said to have made during a July 23 TV interview, which many journalists interpreted as implying that further revaluations of the yuan were inevitable.

..snip..

It is not clear whether CCTV or People's Daily understood the implications in English of the phrase "initial adjustment", and it is certainly possible that the sense of Zhou's remarks might have been lost in the translation from Mandarin to English. But it is clear that many Western journalists, at various publications, including the Financial Times, Bloomberg, and Ireland's Finfacts, interpreted the "initial adjustment" language as a clear implication that further rises in the value of the yuan were inevitable.

This was no trivial misunderstanding. One of the biggest risks China courted when it decided to make last Thursday's revaluation so small (only 2.1%) was that speculators would react by purchasing large amounts of yuan in the belief that further revaluations would follow, yielding a nearly riskless profit. So the PBoC felt compelled to correct what it saw as a serious misinterpretation by the Western media of Zhou's remarks. The resulting "Solemn Statement by the Spokesman of the People's Bank of China" appeared on the PBoC website Tuesday, first in Chinese and then, several hours later, in English.

The 'solemn statement'
The statement complained that "certain foreign media have misled the public and even wrongly speculated that the revaluation of (the yuan) by 2% was only the first step in a series of adjustment(s)", then asserted pointedly: "First, a revaluation of by 2%, effective in the beginning of the exchange rate regime reform, does not in the least imply an initial move which warrants further actions in the future." The text then added: "Second, the 2% revaluation of the yuan was calculated and conducted to maintain the exchange rate basically stable at an adaptive and equilibrium level." After a third point about "gradualism", the statement concluded with another veiled slap at the Western press: "The PBoC welcomes the attention and support on the reform of the yuan exchange rate regime from all walks of life, both at home and abroad, and is looking forward to responsible and objective coverage of the reform based on correct understanding."

cont'd

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China/GG27Ad05.html

[cire4]

1. English and Mandarin are such fundamentally different

languages that I doubt this will be the last linguistic "misunderstanding" between China and the West.