diff --git a/qemu/Makefile b/qemu/Makefile
index fd354e55..6d940d59 100644
--- a/qemu/Makefile
+++ b/qemu/Makefile
@@ -9,8 +9,6 @@ ifneq ($(wildcard config-host.mak),)
 all:
 include config-host.mak
 
-PYTHON_UTF8 = LC_ALL= LANG=C LC_CTYPE=en_US.UTF-8 $(PYTHON)
-
 # Check that we're not trying to do an out-of-tree build from
 # a tree that's been used for an in-tree build.
 ifneq ($(realpath $(SRC_PATH)),$(realpath .))
@@ -172,7 +170,7 @@ qapi/qapi-visit-misc.c qapi/qapi-visit-misc.h \
 qapi-doc.texi: \
 qapi-gen-timestamp ;
 qapi-gen-timestamp: $(qapi-modules) $(qapi-py)
-	$(call quiet-command,$(PYTHON_UTF8) $(SRC_PATH)/scripts/qapi-gen.py \
+	$(call quiet-command,$(PYTHON) $(SRC_PATH)/scripts/qapi-gen.py \
 		-o "qapi" -b $<, \
 		"GEN","$(@:%-timestamp=%)")
 	@>$@