Maohua Qian
School of Foreign Languages, Wuhan Textile University, Wuhan 430200, Hubei, China.
*Corresponding author: Maohua Qian
This work was supported by 2021 Philosophy and Social Sciences Research Project of Colleges and Universities in Hubei Province (Project No. 21Y103), titled “A Study on Its English Translation and Dissemination of On Pro-tracted War”.
Abstract
On Protracted War, Mao Zedong's pivotal 1938 strategic work, played a crucial role in unifying China's wartime thinking by forcefully refuting the fallacies of 'quick victory' and 'national subjugation' during the War of Resistance Against Japan. Beyond its domestic impact in rallying the nation, its global dissemination emerged as a critical mission to showcase China's enduring resistance and the Communist Party's unwavering resolve to the international community. This task relied on a cohort of brave translators: Xu Mengxiong pioneered the English translation under Zhou Enlai's directive, though his manuscript was lost; Yang Gang secretly translated and serialized it in Candid Comment with international support; anonymous Jinan University students published a version in The Translation Weekly amid Shanghai's "isolated island" hardships; and Israel Epstein and Ye Junjian collaborated in Hong Kong to spread it globally via the China Defense League. Their efforts transformed translation into an act of resistance, profoundly shaping global perceptions of China's war effort.
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How to cite this paper
Early Translators of the Masterpiece On Protracted War
How to cite this paper: Maohua Qian. (2025). Early Translators of the Masterpiece On Protracted War. Translation and Foreign Language Learning, 1(1), 144-148.
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.26855/tfll.2025.08.023