Interpreters re international affairs...

Factual Questions
1

…I was watching with my usual disinterest this morning’s local news, and they gave an update on the China situation. Some of the video footage they showed was of a Chinese offical making a speech of some sort (I have to trust the interpreter, since I don’t speak Chinese). I in no way, shape, or form am trying to give the conspiracy theorists among us anything else to whisper about, but how do we know that the translations of the these speeches are actually what is being said? The translations are typically voiceovers, so, IMHO, just speaking Chinese in this instance wouldn’t be enough. The voiceovers lower the volume of what the speaker was actually saying, so lip-reading would almost have to be utilized to verify what was actually said. Is it possible that our government (and the Chinese gov’t, too. I’m not trying to isolate anyone) is manipulating the “soundbites” we get from the Chinese feeds to increase the tension to the constituency, and increase patriotism? And is it not conceivable that the same thing is being done in China? I saw footage of Bush making one of his statements regarding the situation, and I had to divergent thoughts:

  1. In China, this bite may be shown, only with something like “The US is prepared to use whatever tactics are necessary to rescue our personel the clutches of those who would try to destroy our freedom.” (Or something like that)

  2. The Chinese may actually be saying “Hey, look…we’ll give ya’ll the people back if you come get them, and take the plane with you. No harm, no foul.” (Obviously, I’m exaggerating a GREAT DEAL) But, when we see it here, the translator says that “Those imperialist pigs must be held accountable for blah, blah, blah…”
    Maybe this thread doesn’t belong here, but I couldn’t think of a better place (maybe one of our beloved mods does). Or is this just a case of me having seen “Wag the Dog” too many times?

2

I wouldn’t be too concerned about soundbites. What certain officials say publically is rarely what is being said behind closed doors. As soon as that plane hit the runway there were dozens of people on both sides trying to work out a deal. The Chinese saw this is a great oppotunity to humiliate the US. The propaganda machine then started up in order to whip up anger against the US. It’s happened over and over again. Remember when we (oops!) accidentally bombed their embassy two years ago?

While both presidents made idle threats to each other the diplomatic corps were busily trying to figure out who would say what when to end the standoff. Notice that Colin Powell’s rhetoric is very different from Bush’s. I don’t think the US government would spend time faking soundbites to incite the public… since that wouldn’t bring an end to the crisis any sooner anyway.

3

I’m following this situation closely and I’ve noticed that, right now, outside the U.S., it’s being reported that the crew is being interrogated. Last time I looked the U.S. news was not reporting this yet. This could be the sort of thing you are driving at.

4

Ooops, I see the Drudge Report now has a report that the
Chinese are interrogating the aircrew.

5

My wife says the whole thing was orchastrated to bring support for Bush. I think it actually was a trafic accident, and it will be manipulated to bring back all the juicy pork-barrel military contracts of the cold war wether or not it ends up in a shooting match. The timing of this incident does seem suspicious, what with the stock market in a sustained nose-dive.