The purpose of hewing as closely as possible to official usage, in all three languages, is to ensure that the position of speaking from is not confused with the speaking position of the audience addressed by the declaiming performance. If they are to speak they have options. And the third element of this decoder emerges from Tibetans taking up some options and declining others. Declined where possible are the options
Not many users are trilingual. Much of each decoding might slip past. Yet there are reasons for this three-way glide across tongues. First, this decoder is a Tibetan product, from Tibetans who have had many centuries living alongside their much bigger Han Chinese neighbours, a powerful incentive to understanding the complex diplomatic games of successive dynasties, the revealing/concealing phrases of power and patronage, patron and preceptor, appropriation and status. That’s
Readers accessing this handbook in English may not notice the significance of a trilingual guide to the CCP’s standardised jargon. The 97 per cent of all Tibetans, those in Tibet and not in global exile, read these slogans every day, in Tibetan, in the official translations mandated by a slew of party-state agencies involved in finalising official versions in Tibetan or what started life in Chinese. Worldwide, people come across
Who needs to know the intentions of the Chinese Communist Party? These days the answer seems to be just about anyone. We are all affected by China’s rise and rise, alarmed at aggressive rhetoric, wondering if our future is secure. What gets in the way of discerning China’s motives and intentions is China’s propaganda, which is skilfully calculated to make it seem that what is in their interests is also