Sean Slattery from Ireland, who was involved in copyediting the report's English translation. [Photo/CCTV News]

'Chinese modernization' highlighted as a key takeaway by foreign experts

Behind the translated versions of General Secretary Xi Jinping's report to the 20th Communist Party of China National Congress this year was a group of foreign experts from different countries whose job is to help the world to better understand the Party's top political document.

One of these experts is Sean Slattery from Ireland, who was involved in copyediting the report's English translation.

"I think it shows how much importance the Party placed on communicating with the outside world, how it wants to deliver its message to people abroad and tell them how the Party is going to develop and how China is going to develop going forward," he said in an interview with China Global Television Network.

"As for my own role, I feel very privileged to be involved in presenting China's voice to the world. But at the same time, there is also a lot of pressure, because there is kind of a big workload and the timeline is very tight, so there are these two feelings mixing together," he added.

It was not the first time that the CPC invited foreign experts to help translate the report into various languages.

In 2017, foreign experts participated in the translation work of the report to the Party's 19th National Congress, thus becoming the first foreigners to read the report.

This year, nine foreign experts were invited to be involved in the report's translation work, presenting the world with high-quality translated versions in English, French, Russian, Spanish, Arabic, German, Japanese and Lao.

"The report shows great vision, but it's very practical as well," said Slattery.

"It's going to have a big influence on China's development going forward."

"Chinese modernization" was deemed by most of the foreign experts to be one of the main messages that readers would get from this year's report.

Describing Chinese modernization as of "great importance" to the world, Slattery said its special characteristics are distinctively different from the paths that other countries have chosen in the past when pursuing modernization.

He said that achieving modernization for the country's 1.4 billion people is a huge step forward for humanity.

"By pursuing its own path of modernization, China is underscoring the importance of every country pursuing modernization through a path that is suited to their own conditions and that their people will accept and support," Slattery said.

"For other developing countries, Chinese modernization offers a new choice for achieving modernization, based on their own conditions and more international cooperation, rather than plunder, war and blood," said Yahia Mustafa who was responsible for editing the Arabic version of the report.

Peggy Cantave Fuyet has always wanted to know what the world's largest socialist country looked like. The report offered her an insight.

"People", "the environment "and "peace" were her key takeaways from the report.

For the French-language expert, the words indicate that Chinese modernization is a modernization that benefits everyone in the country instead of just a few.

They also indicate that China will honor its words in achieving the goals of peaking carbon emissions and becoming carbon neutral, and that the path China has chosen is not imperialism, colonialism or hegemonism, but a path of peaceful development, she said.

Source：China Daily - Xinhua