BEJING- In a stunning announcement to the world, Chinese President, Jiang Zemin, admitted in flawless British English that all Chinese languages are "completely made-up as we go" and "a big in-joke at the expense of the rest of the world". Zemin could barely contain his laughter as he made his declaration to a phalanx of stunned reporters from the West.

"I mean come on, none of you in the West ever suspected for even a moment? My God tell me one 'Chinese word' that even sounds like it has a beginning or an end? It all just gets mushed together! We were all so bad at pretending! I mean c'mon! Don't even get me started on our 'alphabet'."

Evidently the joke began with Marco Polo's visit to China in the early fourteenth century. The Chinese he met "were really slurring their words while drunk and he thought they were speaking a foreign language, they got a kick out of it and so we all just kept it up as a tradition sort of thing. It really is quite funny to us," explained Zemin.

Interpreters at the U.N. were caught red faced, and at a loss to explain what they were actually translating. While it appears the Chinese translators were merely going along with the joke, those who have supposedly "learned" a Chinese dialect are being rigorously questioned and could face jail time for fraud or institutionalization for those who actually believed they were speaking a foreign tongue.

"Yeah those wackos really scared the beejeezus out of me when I was at the U.N. that time," said Zemin, "by the way call me Gary, that's my real name, Gary Foote."