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The Chinese Football Association used dǎngguó 党国 ("party state" — nettlesome term to be explained fully below) in a powerpoint on its plans for '24. Awkward political illiteracy! 

Here's a screenshot.

Here's the line of text above the photographic image:

Zhōngguó zúxié bù huì yòng cí bùyào luànyòng@zhōngguó zúxié

中国足协不会用词不要乱用@中国足协

"If the Chinese Football Association does not know how to use expressions properly, they should not use them recklessly. @Chinese Football Association"

Here is what is written on the slide in the ppt:

Nǔlì fāngxiàng
(jǐn gōng yántǎo) 
zúqiú zhènxīng = dǎngguó fàngxīn + rénmín mǎnyì + shìchǎng rènkě

努力方向
（仅供研讨）
足球振兴 = 党国放心+人民满意+市场认可

Direction of effort
(for discussion purposes only)
Football revitalization = reassurance of the party and state + satisfaction of the people + market recognition

The issue lies in the contemporary use of Chinese, particularly on the internet, where “dǎngguó 党国” is often employed mockingly to reference the dictatorship of the KMT during the Republican Era (one of Sun Yat-sen’s founding principles in the "Guómín zhèngfǔ jiànguó dàgāng 国民政府建国大纲" [“Nationalist Government’s Nation Building Program”], and the Nationalists also had the slogan “Yǐ dǎng zhìguó 以党治国” ["to rule the country through the party"]).  In contrast, current mainstream propaganda consistently uses “ràng dǎng hé guójiā fàngxīn 让党和国家放心” to convey a similar message of “letting the Party and the Nation rest assured.” This indicates a misappropriation of the abbreviation.

Selected readings

• "Non-translation" (7/24/16)
• "Football's F-word" (11/29/05)
• "A Sino-Italian mistranslation morass" (5/15/21)

[Thanks to Alexander Boyd, Zhengyuan Wang, Annie Wang,  Xinyan Chen, and Zhaofei Chen]

December 1, 2023 @ 12:47 am · Filed by Victor Mair under Language and politics, Language and sports, Slogans

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