The Baiqian Project – Approaches and Practices

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The Baiqian Project (百千計劃)

One Thousand Books in a Century: Peking University’s Academic Classics Translation Project

 

Approaches and Practices

 

(1) Yun Yichang 雲譯場 (Cloud-Based Translation Seminars)

Yun Yichang 雲譯場 constitutes the central operational mechanism of the Baiqian Project. Each translation project establishes an independent Yun Yichang, which functions as a platform for collaborative translation, scholarly discussion, and quality assurance.

Yun Yichang seminars are conducted online on a regular basis. Translators, proofreaders, editors, and, where appropriate, original authors jointly review completed translation segments and engage in in-depth discussion on linguistic accuracy, stylistic consistency, terminological choices, annotation practices, and the scholarly positioning of the work within international academia.

During the initial phase of a project, meetings are typically held every two to three weeks to establish shared standards and workflows. As the project progresses and stabilizes, the frequency may be reduced to monthly meetings.

Beyond project management, the cloud-based forum plays a crucial role in ensuring translation quality and consistency, enabling real-time problem-solving, and minimizing revision costs. More importantly, it cultivates an academic community where translators, proofreaders, and editors can engage in sustained interaction, mutual learning, and methodological development—ultimately supporting high-quality translation outputs and contributing to the professional training and development within the field of Sinology.

 

(2) Regulated Use of AI-Assisted Translation

The Baiqian Project recognizes the potential of artificial intelligence to enhance efficiency in translation, while emphasizing that its use must remain strictly regulated. Any use of AI-assisted translation requires prior approval from the Translation Project Committee and must adhere to the following principles:

  1. Full Transparency
    All AI-generated drafts and outputs, including different versions or model results, must be submitted alongside human-edited drafts and final translations.
  2. Demonstration of Scholarly Judgment
    Translators must provide a comparative analysis—covering no fewer than 1,000 words of the source text—between AI-generated drafts and the final submitted translation, clearly explaining how human judgment, interpretation, and revision were applied.
  3. Human Responsibility and Accountability
    AI tools are regarded strictly as auxiliary aids. Full intellectual responsibility for the accuracy, interpretation, and scholarly quality of the final translation rests with the human translator.

While AI has shown increasing effectiveness with modern Chinese 白話文, its reliability remains limited for Classical Chinese 文言文 and other technically complex materials. This brings us to a major academic issue that this translation project aims to address: how the humanities can respond thoughtfully and critically to the rapid advances of AI, and how the future of Digital Humanities might be reshaped in response. Rather than treating AI merely as a tool for efficiency or as a threat to traditional scholarship, this project offers an opportunity to reconsider the evolving roles of human expertise, interpretation, and scholarly judgment—especially in translating classical texts and technical materials, where nuances of meaning, context, and intellectual rigor remain dependent on human insight and cannot be hastily replaced nor fully automated in the foreseeable future.

 

(3) World Young Sinologist Summer Institute

Publication Plan

Translation Series with Brill

https://brill.com

 

Series Titles:

One Thousand Books in a Century: Peking University’s Academic Classics Translation Project

北京大學百年千冊學術經典外譯

Sub-Series:

  1. Literature and Linguistics 文學與語言學
  2. History, Archaeology and Bibliography 歷史學+考古學+ 藝術史/美術史+文獻目錄學
  3. Philosophy, Religion, Ethics and Aesthetics 哲學+宗教學+倫理學+美學
  4. Social Science (I): Politics, Law, Economics and Sociology 社會科學（I）：政治學+法學+經濟學+社會學
  5. Social Science (II): Psychology + Education + Anthropology + Folklore Studies 社會科學（II）：心理學+教育學+人類學+ 民俗學

 

Open-Access Publishing Initiative

 

Book List

 

Style Sheet:

https://glorisunglobalnetwork.org/hualin-international-journal-of-buddhist-studies-style-sheet/

Translator Guidelines:

https://glorisunglobalnetwork.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/Translator_Guideline_20230313.pdf

 

Project Journal: Xin Hanxue 新漢學 [Neo-Sinology]