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"China" vs. "My / Our Country"

Language Log 2025-09-17

Mark Metcalf wrote:

Currently working my way through an excellent book on Jūnshì lúnlǐ wénhuà 军事伦理文化 (The culture of military ethics) and started noticing that the author ping-pongs between Zhōngguó 中国 and wǒguó 我国 when discussing various aspects of the PRC's history and alleged achievements. Are you aware of any general guidance regarding how the decision is made to use one term or the other? Topical? Polical? Tone?  I'll keep digging and let you know if anything jumps out at me.
 
BTW, one UVA colleague described how he had to teach first year PRC students that "my country" was not an acceptable synonym for China when writing literature essays.

I have to agree with Mark's UVA colleague that, in most cases, "wǒguó" 我国 (lit., "my/our country") should not be translated into English as "my country", although it is common for most bilingual speakers of Chinese to do so. On the other hand, Zhōngguó 中国 (lit., "central country"), should be translated into English as "China", and vice versa.

This is an issue that has bothered me for decades.  Just when do Chinese choose one of these expressions over the other?   

My intuition is that they tend to use wǒguó 我国 more when they want to be sentimental and patriotic, whereas Zhōngguó 中国 seems to be more straightforward, neutral, and political.

I asked my colleague, Jing Hu, a lecturer on Chinese at Penn, her opinion:

What do you think? Would you ever use wǒguó 我国?  If so, when / why? I don't think that the distribution between Zhōngguó 中国 and wǒguó 我国 is purely random.  Do you? 

jing responded:

I’d never use wǒguó 我国 because I’ve been living in the U.S. for the last 22 years and now I am a U.S. citizen. And when I was a student in China, I didn’t have the “right context" to say that as a news reporter, or spokesperson, or researcher/analyzer, etc. You are right, Zhōngguó 中国 is straightforward and neutral and can be used by anyone — Chinese or non-Chinese. While wǒguó 我国 can only be used by Chinese who normally represent the Chinese government or officials… and normally in professional contexts such as government and news reports, business documents, something self-referential and from the perspective of China, such as "wǒguó rénkǒu zhèngcè 我国人口政策 ("China's population policy")… "wǒguó jīngjì fāzhǎn 我国经济发展" ("China's economic development")… "2024 nián wǒguó shēngchǎnle 3 qiān wàn liàng qìchē 2024 年 我国生产了3千万辆汽车 ("In 2024, China produced 30 million cars")… "wǒguó réngōng zhìnéng fāzhǎn hěn kuài 我国人工智能发展很快" ("China's artificial intelligence is developing rapidly")….

No,  the distribution between 中国 and 我国 is not purely random.

For the record:

中国 3,020,000,000 ghits

我国 182,000,000 ghits

 

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