Contrary to false claims on social media, China did not cancel English interpretation service at the foreign minister’s press conference during the annual “Two Sessions” meeting in March 2024, according to AFP correspondents in Beijing. Consecutive interpretation was provided for reporters’ questions, while simultaneous translation was provided for the minister’s answers — a policy introduced in 2020 to save time at the closely-watched briefing.
“English interpretation for the diplomacy-themed press conference has been cancelled, pinks are delighted,” read the simplified Chinese caption of an X post on March 9, 2024.
“Pinks” refers to “little pinks” — a term for China’s online army of nationalist commenters.
The accompanying screenshot shows an article on the news aggregator site NetEase titled: “Thumbs up! English interpretation has been cancelled for this year’s foreign minister press conference at the Two Sessions. The whole briefing will be conducted in Chinese.”
China’s annual “Two Sessions” — parallel meetings of the country’s rubber-stamp parliament and political consultative body — offers a rare glimpse into the strategy of the Communist Party-led government for the year ahead.
Foreign Minister Wang Yi’s press conference is one of the most watched events of the Two Sessions, and his wide-ranging briefing on March 7, 2024 touched on the war in Gaza, US “suppression” of China and the disputed South China Sea.
Similar false claims about the cancellation of English interpretation at the meeting circulated on X, Facebook, and Weibo. This comes amid a rise in nationalist sentiment that has led to China increasingly rejecting English, with Western textbooks forbidden in schools and universities and moving to downgrade English teaching in classrooms (archived link).
English interpretation
However, the claim is false — AFP correspondents in Beijing who attended the press conference confirmed both reporters’ questions and Wang’s answers were simultaneously interpreted from Chinese to English.
A Google keyword search found the live stream of the press conference was uploaded to YouTube by state news agency China News Service (CNS) on March 7, 2024 (archived link).
Interpreters can be heard repeating questions in either Mandarin or English, depending on the language spoken by the reporter at the time.
Since simultaneous interpretation was provided for Wang’s answers, the translation could not be heard in the broadcast. The full transcript including Wang’s responses was published by China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs here (archived link).
Simultaneous interpretation service for the foreign minister’s press conference was introduced during the 2020 Two Sessions meeting, state news agency Xinhua reported on May 24, 2020 (archived link).
The report stated that consecutive interpretation would only be provided for reporters’ questions and the mixed modes of translation would save time so reporters could ask more questions.
Signup bonus from
