Abstract
In 1951, the Chinese delegate to the United Nations proposed to the General Assembly that the Chinese text of the Genocide Convention be revised. The reason for revision, as stated in the Chinese proposal, was that there existed a number of discrepancies between the Chinese text originally prepared by the United Nations Secretariat and the other official texts. The Chinese delegate included in his proposal a new Chinese text for consideration by the General Assembly. Of the proposed changes the most important one related to the Chinese translation of the term “genocide.” The term had originally been translated by the Secretariat as “wei-hai chung-tsu” (lit., “to cause harm or to destroy racial groups”), while the new Chinese text translated the term as “ts'an-hai jen-ch'ün” (lit., “to cause harm to or to destroy human groups in a ruthless manner”). The new translation is closer to the meaning of the term “genocide” which, as defined in Article 2 of the Convention, encompasses any act “committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group.” The Chinese proposal was adopted by the General Assembly on December 21, 1952, by Resolution 691 (VII).
