National media refutes claim that ‘wokou’ removed from dictionary

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The China Publishing and Media Journal (CPMJ), a central-level trade newspaper overseen by the Publicity Department of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, has refuted claims that the term wokou, meaning Japanese pirates, was removed from the latest edition of the Xinhua Zidian, or Xinhua Dictionary, a pocket-sized authoritative dictionary published by the state-owned Commercial Press. 

The declaration came after some netizens recently claimed that the term was removed from the 12th edition of the Xinhua Dictionary, which was released in 2020. Shandong Province-based newspaper Qilu Evening News posted a video on Tuesday, which has since been deleted, confirming the absence of the term in the dictionary's 12th edition. 

Wokou generally refers to Japanese pirates who repeatedly harassed and plundered the coastal areas of Korea and China during the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) around the 14th to 16th centuries. It is also used to describe Japanese invaders during the War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression (1931-45), according to the Modern Chinese Dictionary from the Commercial Press.

The claim that the term was deleted from the Xinhua Dictionary quickly went viral on Sina Weibo, sparking widespread discussion. A user expressed concern over the "removal" and stated that the term holds specific historical background and significance, saying that "deleting the term could weaken the Chinese people's understanding of history."

However, in a post on its official WeChat account on Tuesday night, the CPMJ clarified that the Xinhua Dictionary, as a small dictionary, primarily focuses on the collection of individual characters, adding that since the dictionary's initial publication in the 1950s, no version has included the two-character term "Japanese pirates."

However, the Modern Chinese Dictionary and the Xinhua Cidian, or Xinua Language Dictionary, both published by the Commercial Press as medium-sized dictionaries, have consistently included the term wokou in their various editions, according to the post.

The Xinhua Dictionary, first published in 1953, is the first modern Chinese dictionary released after the foundation of the People's Republic of China in 1949. It has served as a tool for Chinese language learning for decades. The Commercial Press has been responsible for its publication and distribution since 1957. In 2016, the dictionary set two Guinness World Records for being the "most popular dictionary" and the "best-selling regularly updated book," according to the Xinhua News Agency.

Global Times