A Comparison Between The English And French Versions Of Xi Jinping's The Governance Of China In Light Of The Functionalist Theory

China is gaining more importance on the world stage, and thus transmitting China's political ideology to other countries is highly relevant. In this context, China International Publishing Group published multilingual versions of The Governance of China, which attracted the attention from both domestic and international readers. The translation strategies guiding the English and French translation of the book The Governance of China by Xi Jinping appear to be quite different, which could be explained by the two languages' nuanced way of thinking and the diverse translation standards adopted by the two translation groups..This paper focuses on three dimensions in the comparison of the two versions: words, sentences and rhetoric. By examining expression units at different levels and the tones of speech, and applying the framework of the Functionalist translation theory, including Text Typology, the Skopos Theory, and Function plus Loyalty, the author discusses the strengths and weaknesses of the strategies behind the translation of the two versions. For each dimension, there are some subclasses. By summarizing the translation strategies for each subclass, the author has found the general principle for each dimension. By this means, the author hopes to provide useful advice on the translation of political texts and give useful suggestions for future translation practice.Despite the effort to find a solution for each subclass, there is, however, no single strategy that applies to all circumstances. Words and expressions in one culture may have no equivalence in another; rhetoric used in a specific situation may lose some of the meaning when translated to another language due to different ways of thinking. In classifying expressions and searching for suitable strategies, the author finds exceptions that do not match the strategy in each category. Hopefully, future researchers will find similarities in these exceptions and come up with a better solution.