Thread by @MaitreyaBhakal

Schrodinger's China:

China is both a threat to world's peace, and on the verge of collapse.

Schrodinger's response to COVID-19:

China's response is both delayed and riddled with missteps - and is also an over-reaction, massive in scale, and ruthlessly effective:

Schrodinger's Xi Jinping:

Xi Jinping is both "Chairman of Everything" and China's "most authoritarian leader in decades" - and is also always facing heavy criticisms and threats to his rule.

Schrodinger's Nationalism:

China both picks up fights with neighbours and revises its history to encourage nationalism in Chinese people and distract from domestic troubles - and it is also undemocratic, authoritarian, unresponsive and doesn't care what people think.

Schrodinger's R&D:

China both steals Intellectual Property - and is also investing massively in science and technology and is a threat to western tech dominance.

Schrodinger's Infrastructure:

China's OBOR is both an epic failure and riddled with debt traps - and is also a threat to the US-led global order, akin to the Marshall plan.

Schrodinger's Education:

China's education system both encourages rote learning and stifles creativity - and is also creating future skilled workers, scientists, and engineers that are stealing our jobs and technology dominance.

Schrodinger's Soft Power:

China's soft power is both centralized and top-down and draconian and ineffective and a waste of money - and is also a threat to academic freedom and freedom of speech.

Schrodinger's Hong Kong:

Hong Kong is both reeling under the CCP's authoritarian, communist rule which doesn't let it embrace western ideals and concepts - and is also riddled with extreme capitalism and utmost income inequality.

Schrodinger's Police Brutality:

Hong Kong is both a city where protestors can burn people alive, beat them, destroy and set fire to property, try to murder policemen and STILL not get killed - and also a city that suffers from massive police brutality against peaceful protestors

Schrodinger's Quarantines:

China's quarantine's measures are both draconian and ineffective and an over-reaction and won't work in democracies - and also the only way to prevent the spread of the disease and flatten the curve.

Schrodinger's Huawei:

#Huawei is both a company that steals IP and is linked to the PLA and receives massive state support and is a threat to western technology - and it also wins contracts only because its products are cheap and competitive pricing, not because of quality.

Schrodinger's Chinese Students in the US:

Chinese students in the US are both spies working for China - and also relieved of finally being free from China's authoritarian clutches, and thankful for the academic freedom and free speech in the US.

It's the China Uncertainty Principle. A Quantum Theory of China.

It's NOT that China is rising, it's NOT that China is collapsing, it's NOT that China is first rising and then collapsing - it is in fact doing BOTH simultaneously.

Just as light is both a particle and a wave simultaneously, China is both rising and collapsing at the same time.

When China is observed (or "watched") by a China Watcher, it's two states will coalesce, and China will assume the position that most suits the Op-Ed's argument.

Schrodinger's Loss of Face:

China is both worried about its international reputation and "loss of face" - and it also bullies other countries and doesn't care what the word thinks and wants to be "feared, not admired".

Schrodinger's Socialism:

China is both an authoritarian, communist state with no democracy, where the Party exercises complete control over society - and is also a thoroughly capitalist, unequal society with rampant poverty, where Party leaders are all corrupt billionaires.

Schrodinger's Economy:

The Chinese economy both has unsustainable levels of debt and risks a hard landing and is going to collapse any time now - and is also on track to overtake the US and become the largest economy in the world any time now.

Schrodinger's Crisis:

Every crisis in China is both subject to heavy state censorship where dissent is severely crushed - and is also "the biggest threat to the Party's rule since Tiananmen".

Schrodinger's Diplomat:

Chinese diplomats and mandarins both think strategically 100 years ahead and play 6-dimensional chess - and are also bungling up China's rise and stupidly picking up useless fights with other countries.

Schrodinger's Population Control:

China is both concerned about an aging population and wants women to have more babies - and is also sterilizing women and preventing them from having more babies.

Schrodinger's Genocide:

China is both committing genocide against Uyghurs and wants to eradicate Uyghur culture - and is also encouraging inter-marriage between Hans and Uyghurs.

Schrodinger's High-Speed Railway:

China's high-speed trains are both a waste of money, under heavy debt and white-elephant, loss-making projects - and are also a symbol of China's breakneck progress, its undemocratic land-acquisitions and ruthless,authoritarian development model

Schrodinger's Journalists and Sinophobia:

Western China correspondents and think tank analysts both spread Sinophobia - and are also surprised and shocked when Sinophobia occurs.

Schrodinger's CCP:

The CCP is both an all-powerful, all-knowing, omnipresent entity that governs every aspect of life in China - and is also a crumbling, weakening party being destroyed from within by dissent and pushback against the Party elite and increasing corruption.

Schrodinger's Chinese influence abroad:

China is both garnering support from other nations and institutions by using economic ties as bait and coercive tactics - and is also losing allies and harming it's international reputation due to its arm-twisting and coercive tactics.

Schrodinger's Global Times:

Global Times is both a nationalistic tabloid which nobody takes seriously - and is also to be taken extremely seriously and for its word when it threatens Taiwan or India.

Schrodinger's Russia:

Russia is both "upper Volta with missiles" with a smaller economy than Italy and a weak nation that Obama called a "regional power" - and is also an existential threat to US democracy and powerful enough to influence the outcome of US elections.

Schrodinger's East Asian Woman:

The East Asian Woman is both submissive, docile, obedient, exotic, a China Doll and a Geisha Girl - and is also cold, domineering, ferocious, a hypersexual dominatrix, a femme fatale, a "Dragon Lady", or a strict, disciplinary "Tiger Mother"

Schrodinger's Pandemic in Xinjiang:

China is both committing genocide on Uyghurs and wants to exterminate them - and is also so concerned about their lives that it overreacted and tested 4.7 million people in two (2) days after discovering one (1) asymptomatic case.

Schrodinger's Socialism:

Socialism is both a bankrupt ideology that never works and has failed wherever it has been tried - and is also so powerful and dangerous that it requires massive wars, the killing of millions, and endless propaganda to prevent it from spreading.

Schrodinger's Chinese people:

Chinese people are both completely brainwashed by propaganda and brainless automatons who can't think independently - and are also so smart and intelligent that they're taking away our jobs, our science and tech leadership, and our global dominance.

Schrodinger's Chinese people, part 2:

Chinese people are both innocent, saintly people being crushed under the yoke of the brutal Communist regime who deserve our solidarity and sympathy - and are also dirty, filthy, unhygienic people who spread diseases and can't be trusted

Schrodinger's Chinese Diplomacy:

China is both pushing nations away with aggressive "wolf warrior diplomacy" and coercive, arm-twisting tactics - and also increasing its influence among other nations and international organizations at the expense of the US.

Schrodinger's American Democracy:

American democracy is both messy, partisan, gerrymandered, rigged, bigoted, racist, oligarchic, violent, incompetent, and ineffective - and is also the envy of the world that all other nations aspire to.

Schrodinger's Chinese vaccines:

China's COVID vaccines are both useless and untrustworthy and are pushed through with accelerated clinical trials by cutting corners - and are also a dangerous threat to US influence and are filling a geopolitical vacuum with "vaccine diplomacy"

Schrodinger's RCEP:

The RCEP is both a victory for China and a blow to US influence in Asia and the largest trade deal in the world - and is also largely symbolic, unambitious, patchy, overdrawn, ineffectual, and is ASEAN-led and not China-led, and is no victory for China.

Schrodinger's North Korea:

North Korea is both so weak and poor that it can't even feed its people - and is also so powerful that it can hack the IT systems of the most powerful country in the world.

Schrodinger's Food Shortage:

China is both suffering from a severe food shortage crisis that is exacerbated by COVID-19 - and also a nation where over half the adult population is overweight.

Schrodinger's response to COVID:

China's response to COVID-19 is both an abject failure and too much of a success.

Schrodinger's White Adjacency:

For a boba liberal, "You're so white" is both an insult and a compliment - depending on whether it's spoken by an Asian person or a White person.

(tweet shared with permission)

Schrodinger's Chinese victimhood:

China both carries a deep feeling of victimhood - and is also an aggressive bully threatening its victims