Chinese students and parents are demanding an apology from US Vice-President Joe Biden for "insensitive" comments, weeks after he referred to China as the nation that cannot “think different” or “breathe free” during a commencement speech at the University of Pennsylvania.
5月13日，美国副总统乔·拜登在美国宾夕法尼亚大学毕业典礼上发表演说，称中国是不能“自由思考”或“自由呼吸”的国度，这样的言论引起了在场中国学生和家长的不满，要求其进行道歉。
“I believe Biden should apologise over his inappropriate comments made at my commencement in the face of at least hundreds of Chinese people,” Zhang Tianpu, a graduating Wharton senior and Chinese citizen, told the South China Morning Post on Wednesday.
宾夕法尼亚大学沃顿商学院毕业班的中国学生张天璞周三对香港《南华早报》表示，“我认为拜登应该为他的不恰当评论道歉，当时毕业典礼上至少有数百名中国人。”
“It was a humiliating experience,” he said. “And how can a graduation speech be this political?”
“这是一次羞辱的经历，一场毕业演说为何会变得这么政治化?”
Zhang and his peers have already drafted a letter to Biden demanding an official apology. The letter has 343 signatures as of Wednesday and will be sent to the university’s president before reaching Biden's desk. Requests for comment from Biden's office have not been returned.
张天璞和他的同学已经起草一封信，要求拜登做出正式道歉。到22日为止已有343人签名，信件将先被呈递给该校校长，然后转交到拜登办公室。拜登办公室暂未就此事做出答复。
Biden’s comments, which were called "inappropriate", hugely disappointed the Chinese in his audience. They were delivered in the middle of his May 13 speech, reported by the Guardian as “by far the funniest of the recent commencement addresses”.
拜登在5月13日的毕业典礼上的“不当言论” 让在场的中国听众非常失望。而正是这场演说，被英国《卫报》评为“目前为止近来最有趣的毕业典礼演说”。
But not everyone appreciated his jokes. Touching on the concern that “the Chinese are going to eat our lunch”, Biden assured his audience that they had nothing to fear.
但不是所有的人都欣赏他的玩笑话。在谈到对“中国会吃掉我们的午餐”的担忧时，拜登向他的听众保证，没有什么值得害怕的。
“Their problems are immense, and they lack much of what we have,” he said, citing America’s universities, its “open and fair legal” system, vibrant venture capital markets and innovative minds.
“中国的问题很多，他们缺少我们所拥有的很多东西”，拜登引用美国的大学举例说，如“开放和公平” 的法律体系、充满活力的风险资本市场以及创新思维。
The key to all these, Biden argued, was the ability to “think different”, in a reference to Steve Jobs' slogan for Apple.
拜登说道，这些的关键是“自由思想”的能力，这里他提到的是史蒂夫·乔布斯为苹果公司设计的口号(“不同凡响”)。
“You cannot think different in a nation where you cannot breathe free; you cannot think different in a nation where you aren’t able to challenge orthodoxy, because change only comes from challenging orthodoxy.”
“在无法自由呼吸的国家，你无法自由思考;在无法挑战正统观念的国家，你无法自由思考，因为改变只能来源于挑战正统”。
To which Zhang argued: “Come on, my ancestors were challenging orthodoxy even before his ancestors got to America.”
对此张反驳说：“拜托，我们的祖先在他的祖先到美洲之前就开始挑战正统观念了。”