ABSTRACT
As a governmental translation office with a history of more than 70 years, the China Foreign Languages Publishing Administration (CFLPA) is the largest national institution in the People’s Republic of China responsible for the translation of China’s policies, political documents, works of Chinese leaders, and more. Drawing on an interview with a CFLPA translation team leader, this chapter examines the requirements for translators of Chinese political discourse at CFLPA, and its training measures adopted to upskill its Chinese-English translators, particularly in the digital era and the COVID-19 pandemic. All translators, including CFLPA’s in-house translators, temporary external translators and reviewers (native speakers of a target language), are required to have uncontroversial political beliefs and a full understanding of the domestic and international realities so as to convey an accurate meaning of the source texts. CFLPA also introduced a useful training mechanism which operates in various forms, such as seminars, a tutorial system, despatch to overseas branches, etc. This technology-driven era makes it possible for CFLPA to provide training to its in-house and external translators, which helps to build a talent pool across China to assist in the translation of Chinese political discourse and China’s communications with the rest of the world.
