THREAD: I've repeatedly highlighted that you need #Chinese language literacy for analysing Chinese politics. . The below-quoted thread is an example of why. The author argues that the use of word 战 (zhan) - war/to fight - is proof that #China is "preparing for war" /1 https://twitter.com/TangAnZhu/status/1304736063894642688

I made the effort to go through the quoted document and to check, how 战 is used in context. Important to know is that unless you're dealing with a classical #Chinese text published before 1912, most Chinese words are composed of 2-3 characters. /2

This means that a chacter rarely stands alone, but is part of another word. So let's take a look how 战 is used in the quoted text of which words it is part. We have
1) 7x 战略 (zhanlüe) = strategy -> referring to #China's strategy in the fight against COVID /3

2) 1x 战士 (zhanshi) = fighter or warrior -> referring to Chinese people being great fighters in the fight against COVID
3) 1x 挑战 (tiaozhan) = challenge -> referring to COVID
4) 1x 决战 (juezhan) = decisive battle -> referring to fight against domestic poverty /4

5) 1x standalone 战 = fight -> in: fight against corruption
6) in "平时好用、战时管用" = "easy to use in peacetime, effective in wartime", an idiom for crisis resistant -> in: 'We'll improve the system of social governance at the community level and ensure that it's "easy to /5

use in peacetime, effective in wartime", meaning crisis resistant. "Social governance at the community level" has to do with neighbourhood surveillance, so that's a problematic issue - but it has no foreign policy reference. /6

7) "三大战" (san da zhan) - three big wars -> referring to political security, social stability, and strictly managing the party and the police. These are evidently not the quoted PLA’s "Three Warfares" (public opinion, psychological, and legal warfare) https://twitter.com/TangAnZhu/status/1304736072245501963?s=20 /7

To sum things up: #China may or may not be "preparing for war". But the text, the author of the quoted thread uses a proof that China is preparing for war, does not work as a proof. It deals with domestic issues, and 战 is used in a domestic context. /8

#Chinese language matters for analysing #China and Chinese politics. The context matters, too. So, if you quote a Chinese source, make sure to read it carefully. An interpretation that is disconnected from the source's content is not scientific. /end