Translation blues: how to render "shall" in Sino-American trade agreements
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Excerpt from Ambassador Robert Lighthizer’s recent book, No Trade is Free, on the use of "yīng" 应 or "jiāng" 将 to translate "shall" in official trade agreements:
«We relied primarily on these USTR [United States Trade Representative] officials in the Office of China, Affairs, the Office of Innovation and Intellectual Property, the Interagency Center on Trade Implementation, Monitoring, and Enforcement, and the Office of the General Counsel, and their work was invaluable in ensuring that there were no gaps between the English text and the Chinese text.
Although there were extensive battles over the translations of various terms, the most difficult fight was over whether the term "ying" or "jiang" should be used as the Chinese translation for "shall" in numerous instances throughout the agreement. Our Chinese-language experts at USTR insisted that "ying" was the appropriate Chinese term to use for "shall" because it represented an obligation, whereas "jiang" represented the future tense relating to something a party merely planned to do in the future. However, the Chinese side vehemently disagreed, arguing that the use of "ying" was inappropriate and even insulting. We even decided to consult outside Chinese language experts on this issue, including one who had worked on important agreements with China over several decades while serving with the US embassy in Beijing. They all confirmed that if we wanted the term to convey obligation, we should continue to insist on using "ying." That is exactly what we did. After several conference calls between Ambassador Gerrish and Vice Minister Liao on this issue, the Chinese finally relented and agreed to use "ying." As we went through this "ying versus jiang" discussion internally at USTR, I asked my staff to bring me the famous cyber-intrusion agreement that President Obama had made with President Xi. I wanted to see which Chinese word that agreement had used. After some delay and checking around the government, my staff discovered that neither word had been used in Obama's agreement. That was because the agreement had never been written down. There had not even been a joint press release agreed to. This vaunted "agreement" was nothing but a US press release. I realized again why the Chinese side was so surprised by our approach. They were used to dealing with Americans who were more interested in a show than actual enforceable agreements.»
Robert Lighthizer, No Trade is Free: Changing Course, Taking on China, and Helping America’s Workers. New York, NY: Broadside Books, 2023.
It's hard enough to know how to use "shall" just in the single language of English alone. I have several times been chastised for using "shall" to indicate futurity.
Here's the American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 5th ed. (AHD) usage note for "shall":
The traditional rules for using shall and will prescribe a highly complicated pattern of use in which the meanings of the forms change according to the person of the subject. In the first person, shall is used to indicate simple futurity: I shall (not will) have to buy another ticket. In the second and third persons, the same sense of futurity is expressed by will: The comet will (not shall) return in 87 years. You will (not shall) probably encounter some heavy seas when you round the point. The use of will in the first person and of shall in the second and third may express determination, promise, obligation, or permission, depending on the context. Thus I will leave tomorrow indicates that the speaker is determined to leave; You and she shall leave tomorrow is likely to be interpreted as a command. The sentence You shall have your money expresses a promise ("I will see that you get your money"), whereas You will have your money makes a simple prediction. Such, at least, are the traditional rules. The English and some traditionalists about usage are probably the only people who follow these rules and then not with perfect consistency. In America, people who try to adhere to them run the risk of sounding pretentious or haughty. Americans normally use will to express most of the senses reserved for shall in English usage. Americans use shall chiefly in first person invitations and questions that request an opinion or agreement, such as Shall we go? and in certain fixed expressions, such as We shall overcome. In formal style, Americans use shall to express an explicit obligation, as in Applicants shall provide a proof of residence, though this sense is also expressed by must or should. In speech the distinction that the English signal by the choice of shall or will may be rendered by stressing the auxiliary, as in I will leave tomorrow ("I intend to leave"); by choosing another auxiliary, such as must or have to; or by using an adverb such as certainly. · In addition to its sense of obligation, shall can also convey high moral seriousness that derives in part from its extensive use in the King James Bible, as in "Righteousness shall go before him and shall set us in the way of his steps" (Ps 85:13) and "He that shall humble himself shall be exalted" (Mt 23:12). The prophetic overtones that shall bears with it have no doubt led to its use in some of the loftiest rhetoric in English. This may be why Lincoln chose to use it instead of will in the Gettysburg Address: "government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth."
While we're at it, here's the AHD usage note for "should":
Just as they ignore the traditional rules governing the use of shall and will, Americans largely ignore the traditional rules governing the use of should and would. The two verbs are not always interchangeable, however. To express duty or obligation, should is required and functions as the equivalent of ought to: I (or you or he) should go. But would (and not should) is used to express willingness or promise (I agreed that I would do it) and to express habitual action in the past (In those days we would walk along the canal at night). Would also has the advantage of being a polite substitute for will in requests: Would you lend me a dollar? Either should or would can be used in the first person to express the future from the point of view of the past, but one should bear in mind that should sounds more formal than would: He swore that I should (or less formally, would) pay for the remark. The same principle applies to the verb in sentences that express a hypothetical condition or event: If I had known that, I would (or more formally, should) have answered differently. In the second and third persons, however, only would is used: She assured us that she would (not should) return. If he had known that, he would (not should) have answered differently. · Choosing which verb to use in conditional clauses, such as those beginning with if, can be tricky. In certain clauses, should is used for all three persons: If I (or you or he) should decide to go, we will need a larger car. If it should begin to snow, we will stay here tonight. Would is not acceptable in these if clauses, but it does appear in other kinds of conditional clauses: He might surprise you if you would give him a chance. The best advice is to follow what sounds most natural. When in doubt, writers can try a verb form in the indicative (if it begins to snow) or the subjunctive (if you were to give him a chance).
Back to the ying vs. jiang blues with which we started:
[the definitions in this section are from the relevant entries of Wiktionary]
應 / 应
yīng
1. should; ought to
2. to consent to; to agree
3. (literary) perhaps; maybe
yìng
1. to answer; to reply
2. to permit; to promise
3. to agree; to echo; to go along with
4. to handle; to deal with
5. (of words, etc.) to come true; to be confirmed
6. to suit; to fit
7. to accept
将 / 將
jiāng
1. will; going to
2. soon; in the near future
3. nearly; almost
4. just; just now
5. certainly; surely
(Wiktionary has 23 additional definitions for this character pronounced jiang in the first tone)
jiàng
1. to command; to lead
2. (military) general
3. high-ranking military officer
4. (xiangqi) general; king (on the black side)
5. (figurative) dab hand (at something); capable person
At this point, I shall bring our ying vs. jiang blues to a temporary halt.
Selected readings
- "It shall be our unity that overcomes" (7/27/08)
- "What's will?" (12/10/08) — vigorous discussion on "shall" vs. "will" in the comments, also in the comments to this post.
- "Whom shall I say [ ___ is calling ]?" (1/23/07)
[Thanks to Vito Acosta]
John Baker said,
January 2, 2024 @ 3:03 pm
In (English language) legal drafting, “shall” expresses a clear sense of obligation (without regard to whether it is first, second, or third person), while “will” is, at best, more ambiguous. As with many aspects of legal drafting, this is not necessarily reflective of ordinary usage.
Roscoe said,
January 2, 2024 @ 3:24 pm
Louis Litt on “Suits”: “At this firm, we instruct, we advise, we order, we must, but we do not ‘shall.’”
Aardvark Cheeselog said,
January 2, 2024 @ 3:31 pm
In software functional specifications and IT systems standards documents, "shall" has a meaning parallel to the legal one (in the former case the language often goes straight into a legal contract to perform specific work).
John Baker said,
January 2, 2024 @ 3:54 pm
@Roscoe: You may have suspected this already, but the disconnect between Suits and anything that actually happens in legal practice is impressive, even by the standards of network television.
david said,
January 2, 2024 @ 4:27 pm
My first experience with the technical meaning of "shall" was with new requirements for a Space Shuttle avionics upgrade. There was a team of extremely focused engineers who would dig into each occurrence of "shall". They would frequently stop the conversation and say, "That 'shall' is not testable."
In a software requirement, the word imposed a contractual obligation. And enforcing the terms of the contract required that we all understand clearly not only that we were saying that this MUST happen but that we all agreed how to VERIFY it.
david said,
January 2, 2024 @ 4:39 pm
Two references:
1) In response to the question "What's the only word that means mandatory? Here's what law and policy say about 'shall, will, may, and must.'", the US Federal Aviation Adminitration points to this plainlanguage.gov proscription against using the word "shall" (and use "must", instead). https://www.plainlanguage.gov/guidelines/conversational/shall-and-must/
2) Internet Engineering Task Force RFCs typically upper-case a handful of words that have this sort of technical meaning, and the meanings are in turn formally defined in RFC 2119 which explicitly says "…1. MUST This word, or the terms REQUIRED or SHALL, mean that the definition is an absolute requirement of the specification." https://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2119.txt
DaveK said,
January 2, 2024 @ 4:50 pm
I had always considered Winston Churchill’s famous “ We shall fight on the beaches…we will never surrender” line as a good example of the traditional inversion of “shall” and “will” to express determination. I just checked and the line is recorded as “we shall never surrender”.
Ebenezer Scrooge said,
January 2, 2024 @ 5:13 pm
John Baker is certainly correct for legal commercial practice. "Shall" conveys obligation, full stop. But Congress uses the word "shall" in many wondrous ways. Federal legislative drafting is notoriously sloppy. The precision statutes are mostly in state law, such as the Uniform Commercial Code.
Not a naive speaker said,
January 2, 2024 @ 5:25 pm
Request for Comments (RFC) 2119 is about the "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate Requirement Levels"
https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc2119
Scott P. said,
January 2, 2024 @ 5:49 pm
I had always considered Winston Churchill’s famous “ We shall fight on the beaches…we will never surrender” line as a good example of the traditional inversion of “shall” and “will” to express determination. I just checked and the line is recorded as “we shall never surrender”.
What about MacArthur's "I shall return."?
Thomas Lumley said,
January 2, 2024 @ 6:09 pm
A recent XKCD discusses the meaning of "shall" in the context of the 22nd Amendment
https://xkcd.com/2875/
Geoff Warren said,
January 2, 2024 @ 6:11 pm
I work for a regulatory agency and have been involved in writing regulations. The legal sense is very strong in this use. We use :"shall" or "must" to indicate an obligation (The licensee shall…/The file must…).
In a guidance document, we are required to use "should" to indicate a recommendation unless we can reference a regulation or other requirement.
We once had an issue with how to write a procedure in a guidance document that licensees could commit to using if they didn't want to write one of their own. In that case, if we used "should" since they weren't required to follow the procedure, we couldn't enforce them following it even if they had committed to it. The final decision was to use "will" with a meaning between "shall" and "should".
Geoff Warren said,
January 2, 2024 @ 6:20 pm
Just to clarify in my previous comment – we couldn't use "shall" in the procedure since they weren't required to follow it unless they committed to it (i.e.) stated in writing that they would follow it), and we couldn't use "should" because then they wouldn't have to follow it even if they committed to it.
stephen said,
January 2, 2024 @ 7:31 pm
And the Ten Commandments famously use shall. They were constructed like a contractual agreement between two parties.
AntC said,
January 2, 2024 @ 9:46 pm
@stephen the Ten Commandments famously use shall …
I think you'll find they weren't drafted in English. Also the (dated) English translation is from before there was a body of Contract Law.
James in Oamaru said,
January 3, 2024 @ 2:51 am
I recall reading, many years ago, an anecdote about someone falling into a lake near a group of pedants and his screams of "No one will help me, I shall surely die!" leading everyone to ignore him as he struggled to stay afloat.
Andreas Johansson said,
January 3, 2024 @ 2:59 am
In the technical specifications we write at work, "shall" expresses a an obligation on the contractor ("the knife shall be sharp enough to cut cucumber") whereas "will" expresses something the contractor can rely on when designing their product ("the cucumber will be a at room temperature" (and not, frex, frozen solid)).
"Should" expresses something the contractor is expected to try to achieve, but aren't contractually obligated to.
GH said,
January 3, 2024 @ 3:53 am
@AntC
The point is that the conventional English translation preserves legal language in the original. (And contracts and laws, and special phrases used in them, certainly existed at the time it was written.)
That the Ten Commandments are written as a contract/treaty ("covenant") is explicit in the text and has always been recognized, and modern scholars have noted its formal resemblance to other legal texts from that region and period, including to marriage contracts and to treaties of allegiance in which a city or state submitted to a sovereign.
Martin said,
January 3, 2024 @ 5:41 am
The way in which will/shall are used in the KJV is actually quite curious. I write as a middle-aged BrE speaker who still uses shall for unemphatic first person, some of the time, and recognises a sense of obligation or purpose in 'you shall' or 'he shall'. But the KJV does not do this. 'I will' is ten times more common than 'I shall' in the KJV and generally expresses what I would think of as unemphatic simple future. 'he shall' is about three times as common as 'he will' and again is largely unemphatic. 'thou shalt' is ten times more common than 'thou wilt', same thing, and the patterns are more or less repeated in the plural forms. So in so far as there's a rule in the KJV, it appears to be the opposite of the one that I grew up with. Clearly in there there are traces of the original verbs' meanings in terms of volition and obligation, and 'thou shalt not kill' and friends are examples of that; but overall it looks as though 'will' and 'shall' were still competing for which one should form the simple future, and 'shall' might still have won (as it did in Dutch) if usage had continued on the KJV model.
AntC said,
January 3, 2024 @ 7:20 am
Since this is Language Log[**], a couple of points on "Commandment" vs "Contract":
A contract entails obligations on both parties. A commandment is one-sided.
A contract is null and void if one of the parties does not have effective free choice over whether to participate. (See 'Forced marriage', 'Forced conversion.)
A contract cannot entail obligations on generation upon generation of those not even born when the contract was struck. (See 2.)
I'd expect 1. to include, for example, protecting the lives of the party of the second part from capricious Acts of God; and not compounding the misery by crashing planes trying to bring relief.
[**] And not Religious Claptrap Log.
Lane said,
January 3, 2024 @ 7:29 am
Bryan Garner, legal lexicography man, argues strongly against "shall" for its many ambiguities, and I think rightly so. He also says that as a matter of fact it's in decline in legal writing, which would be a good thing.
The "inappropriate, even insulting" angle is interesting to me. In western law, the fact that a contract or legal deal clearly obligates or binds both parties is taken as given. It sounds as though in China this is seen as face-threatening. Something for Victor to enlighten us on further at some point maybe.
Raempftl said,
January 3, 2024 @ 7:40 am
If I (professional translator) was asked to translated a text of any type (Textsorte) and I was unsure about certain expressions/conventions, the first thing I would do is take an original text of the source language of the same type and analyse what means are used to express those expressions/conventions (e.g. an obligation in a contract). And than I would use exactly those means regardless of the means the source language uses.
In German contracts, obligations are expressed using the present tense. If I had the sentence "The purchaser shall pay USD 3000 ," my translation would be "Der Käufer zahlt 3000 USD." And I couldn't care less about any implications of "shall" in the original.
If I had to sign a German contract where obligations are (repeatedly) expressed using "muss" or even worse "hat zu" (e.g. "Der Käufer muss 3000 USD zahlen" or "Der Käufer hat 3000 USD zu zahlen"), I would find that "inappropriate and" maybe "even insulting" but at the very least annoying.
So for me the question would not be whether to use ying or jiang but what is the Chinese functional equivalent to "shall" in similar texts originally written in Chinese?
Jarek Weckwerth said,
January 3, 2024 @ 7:57 am
Would someone active in legal translation please help me here, because I'm slightly puzzled.
(Disclosure: I used to do quite a lot of translation in the olden days, but I avoided legal translation like the plague exactly for fear of this kind of conundrums.)
Normally, I would think this kind of problem is resolved by looking at the typical usages in the target language (rather than focussing on low-level local things like individual lexical choices in the original). Otherwise, you end up with unbearable, unidiomatic translatorese*.
In other words, here, I would look at typical Chinese contracts written by native speaking Chinese lawyers and see how the same concept (let us say, obligation) is expressed in those. Rather than looking for a translation of that specific lexical item (shall). So, for example, in contracts originally written in my first language, the function would be achieved using either plain present tense, or some kind of phrasing that involves expressions along the lines of "is obliged to"**. This is also largely the case, I think, in EU law where the original (?) English uses shall.
That would certainly be the case in "other types of" translation. How different is this in legal translation? Are there special consideratons stemming from the fact that some concepts are not parallel? Or from specific traditions in interpreting specific wordings?
(*) Which seems to be the case far too often these days, at least for translations from English. Presumably, that's because everybody thinks they know English and therefore translate from it; and also because of Google Translate and similar services. Even ChatGPT suffers from this.
(**) Curiously (to me), the Ten Commandments do the future tense and imperative. To make matters worse, the future tense in the masculine ;)
AntC said,
January 3, 2024 @ 7:59 am
This vaunted "agreement" was nothing but a … press release. [from the Ambassador's remarks]
Interestingly, there's a parallel vagueness going on right now in Taiwan's general election. The KMT is proposing relations with PRC should begin from a position based on the "1992 Consensus" [see wikip].
This has never been made public ( _if_ it was ever written down).
Taiwan was a one-party State at the time, so there's no discoverable document. The KMT's main opponents (and current government — but who weren't even able to register as a party in 1992) are playing really hard ball: what 'consensus' without the Taiwan people being informed? Put up or shut up!
The KMT seem to have no better idea than repeatedly standing on the short end of the same rake.
AntC said,
January 3, 2024 @ 8:12 am
@Jarek Otherwise, you end up with unbearable, unidiomatic translatorese*.
In the legal contract drafting I've been involved in (all in English), "bearable", "idiomatic" are Bad Things. That's why lawyers aim for 'legalese' deliberately. The obligations must be unambiguously expressed, under the expectation each party will try to bend any vagueness to their own benefit.
If I were you, I'd carry on avoiding it: sounds like you have too generous of a mindset.
GH said,
January 3, 2024 @ 8:18 am
@AntC:
For one thing, you assume a particular legal regime. For another, even within that perspective you take a very narrow view, when e.g. treaties are a form of "contract" that can be held binding both in spite of one party being effectively forced to agree, and upon future generations.
Finally, the Decalogue does mention obligations on both parties: "for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, punishing children for the iniquity of parents to the third and fourth generation of those who reject me but showing steadfast love to the thousandth generation of those who love me and keep my commandments."
And where it appears, it is also followed by further divine commitments if the Israelites fulfill their side of the covenant:
Exodus 23:22–26: "But if you listen attentively to his voice and do all that I say, then I will be an enemy to your enemies and a foe to your foes. When my angel goes in front of you and brings you to the Amorites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Canaanites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites, and I blot them out, you shall not bow down to their gods or serve them or follow their practices, but you shall utterly demolish them and break their pillars in pieces. You shall serve the Lord your God, and I will bless your bread and your water, and I will take sickness away from among you. No one shall miscarry or be barren in your land; I will fulfill the number of your days." (Etc.)
Deuteronomy 5:33: "You must follow exactly the path that the Lord your God has commanded you, so that you may live and that it may go well with you and that you may live long in the land that you are to possess."
Without getting into current events or politics, I would expect a well-informed person such as yourself to be familiar with God's side of this supposed covenant, and of its historical importance.
It appears to me that you are digging further in with new and increasingly irrelevant objections merely to avoid conceding that @stephen's original point was valid.
Victor Mair said,
January 3, 2024 @ 9:42 am
From Jeffrey Tigay, a modern biblical scholar who is an authority on Deuteronomy, which is one of the two places in the Bible where the text of the Ten Commandments appears, Exodus 20:2–17 and Deuteronomy 5:6–21:
=====
In the prohibitions within the Decalogue there is no separate verb meaning "shall." There is merely the negative adverb "lo" (functioning as a prohibitive) followed by the second person imperfect of the verb in question, such as "murder."
=====
Comrade Carl said,
January 3, 2024 @ 10:40 am
When I was creating contracts for New York City social services, I always wrote "The City expects that the contractor will…" or "the contractor shall…" and the City's Law Dept changed it every time to "The City expects the contractor would…". It drove me crazy since it seemed to weaken my authority to enforce the contract!
katarina said,
January 3, 2024 @ 11:36 am
@ Scott P.:
Re. Winston Churchill's “ We shall fight on the beaches…we shall never surrender.”
Google Translate has:
We shall fight on the beaches,…
我们将在海滩上战斗
Wǒmen jiàng zài hǎitān shàng zhàndòu
…we shall never surrender.
…我们永远不会投降
Wǒmen yǒngyuǎn bù huì tóuxiáng
In the first sentence "shall" is translated as 将 "will, shall, certainly". In the
second sentence "shall" is translated as 会 "will, shall, certainly".
As for the Ten Commandments, Google Translate has
Thou shall not kill.
你不可杀人
Nǐ bùkě shārén
Here "shall" is translated as 可 "can, allowed to".
I agree with Google.
katarina said,
January 3, 2024 @ 12:02 pm
@Scott P.
Re. MacArthur's "I shall return".
Google Translate has
I shall return.
我应该回来
Wǒ yīnggāi huilai,
where "shall" is mistranslated as 应该 yinggai "should".
I would translate MacArthur's "shall" here as 將會jianghui “shall, certainly".
Philip Taylor said,
January 3, 2024 @ 12:28 pm
It is perhaps worth nothing that in British English, because of our traditional penchantfor meiosis, even "may" can mean "shall, certainly" as in Lawrence "Titus" Oates’ tragic final words — “I am just going outside and may be some time”.
Coby said,
January 3, 2024 @ 12:42 pm
VHM: Except that the prohibitive negative adverb is normally al rather than lo, so that the commandments actually read more like (in modern English) "you will not…"
Jonathan Silk said,
January 3, 2024 @ 4:49 pm
I was going to comment that the Churchill speech was likely read by an actor, but fortunately I decided to check whether this story I had heard was true. Despite it having been repeated over and over, it is evidently entirely false: https://winstonchurchill.org/resources/myths/an-actor-read-churchills-wartime-speeches-over-the-wireless/
A footnote, nothing more, to this interesting discussion, which will/shall interest some ;)
AntC said,
January 4, 2024 @ 12:58 am
@Comrade Carl expect … it seemed to weaken my authority to enforce the contract!
It was your merely "expecting" that's doing all the weakening. Your legal dept is putting other vocabulary choices in line with that.
If the contractor fails to meet your expectations, so what? If you mean they _must_ deliver the services to get paid, say so.
Michael Carasik said,
January 4, 2024 @ 2:05 am
Victor asks me to post:
The basic answer to the question is that they use the 2nd masculine singular imperfect, negated by לא rather than אל. The latter accompanies a jussive and more or less says, “Don’t” (do that thing you are doing or about to do); when Naomi tells Ruth and Orpah not to accompany her back to Bethlehem, she simply says אל without even using a verb. לא goes with the indicative and also is the way to issue a more general prohibition.
There's no separate "shall" word in Hebrew (then or now). The form I called "imperfect" (which may not be precisely what "imperfect" means in the linguistics department) is also used as jussive/cohortative for the many verbs that don't have separate jussive/cohortative forms. In Modern Hebrew it is simply the future tense, though it can also stand in for the imperative (and is always used for a negative imperative).
In addition to the two versions of "the" Ten Commandments, there is also the place where they are first called "Ten," with the quite different set of commandments in the "Ritual Decalogue." Read more in pp. 141–148 in the "Legal Voices" chapter of my "The Bible's Many Voices" (Philadelphia: UNP/JPS, 2014).
AntC said,
January 4, 2024 @ 6:52 am
Thank you Michael.
So the tone is more like 'No smoking anywhere in this building'.
That follows the guidance I was given for writing procedures manuals for an audience who might not have English as a first language (or whose English language schooling stopped early): don't use fancy shall/will — you'll only provoke nervousness as to whether this is discretionary or a prediction rather than an instruction. Do use indicative present. Use 'must (not)' for emphasis.
Jonathan Smith said,
January 5, 2024 @ 11:52 am
main problem: failing to think explicitly about why "shall" feels so right in English: convention + concomitant King James stuffiness of course, with any real force in the end just a function of interpretation by some enforcement body… which in these cases yeah not happening. secondary problem: what others said above viz. failing to consider parallel Chinese-language documents instead to hand-wring over direct-seeming translationese options. Re: ying1 应: dubious choice, amazing this was uniformly insisted upon by US experts. among other problems, exactly wrong in allowing the reading of "mustgotta / really should". jiang1 将 at least succeeds in suggesting that the stipulated behavior "shall" follow as a matter of course rather than being subject to the will of the relevant party.
Victor Mair said,
January 6, 2024 @ 9:50 am
From Mark Metcalf:
In light of your excellent recent LL post, this Wang Yi comment jumped out at me today:
“Both sides should continue to make full use of various mechanisms restored or established in the fields of diplomacy, economy, finance, commerce, agriculture and other fields, build bridges of communication as soon as possible, pave the road for cooperation, and eliminate various barriers to exchanges between the two countries.” (my highlighting)
Source: https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3247508/us-and-china-mark-45-years-diplomatic-ties-top-diplomat-wang-yi-warns-against-confrontation-and-zero
Why was that translated as "should" and not "must"? As I read it, if Wang is serious about this, "must" – an imperative – is more appropriate. To use "should" – as I read it – waters down the importance of his comments to the realm of suggestions.
I've looked for a direct quote of what Wang said, but can't find one that explicitly quotes his remarks. This is as close as I could come: https://www.fmprc.gov.cn/wjbzhd/202401/t20240105_11219191.shtml
要坚持合作共赢，压舱之石是推进互利合作。双方要继续充分用好在外交、经济、金融、商务、农业等领域恢复或建立的各项机制，尽快把沟通的桥梁搭起来，把合作的道路铺起来，排除两国交往面临的各种障碍，穿透虚假信息制造的各种“茧房”，不断拉紧两国人民之间的纽带，为中美关系健康发展提供更多正能量。期待两国各界有识之士抖擞生龙活虎的精神，鼓舞龙腾虎跃的气势，推动中美关系沿着正确方向一路向前。
And, in this instance, it's 要 ("must; demand") that's translated as "should".
Phil H said,
January 8, 2024 @ 9:24 pm
(Chinese translator here)
On the question of how Chinese contracts do it: the problem here is that Chinese contract language is deeply, unbelievably, horribly bad. It's a huge problem in translation, because there literally are no good, widely used standards. And I've had exactly the same problem as is referred to in the OP: you use a bit of technical legalese in a contract, and the boss of the Chinese company decides it doesn't "sound nice" and he wants it changed. There is simply not a good enough tradition of legal writing to support an answer to the question, "How is this done in Chinese?"
So, for example, I often find sentences in Chinese legal contracts (and in laws!) without a subject. This is permissible in Chinese grammar, but of course means that the document is failing to make explicit who will do the action. And the voice markers like shall/will/if are routinely missed off, again leaving sentences that are grammatical but ambiguous. So it's common to see a sentence like, "Party A pays the balance in seven days." From context and content, we assume that's an obligation, but the sentence itself does not make it clear.