Understand China Through Sci-Fi: The Three Body Problem

Three Body Problem is a hard science science fiction novel by Cixin Liu. It, along wit the sequels, were bestsellers in China. The novel centers on the Trisolarians, a race of beings from a world that is nearly the complete opposite of The Privileged Planet.

The novel is great in many ways. Most importantly, it's a good story. If you enjoy science fiction, you will enjoy this book. The characters are great, such as Da Shi, the corrupt cop with no manners who seems like he fell right out of a Chinese/HK police drama. The use of the three-body problem, in this case a world with three stars, is a wonderful use of physics.

What I really liked about the book was the authors different viewpoints, as opposed to much of science fiction that recycles the same ideas over and over. In the afterword, Liu discusses how war between foreigners is common on Earth, yet people often ascribe benevolent motives to aliens in science fiction. He says the opposite is the pragmatic view: we should assume we are not alone and whatever is out there is probably extremely dangerous, given that nearly every major foreign contact in human history has gone poorly for the less advanced civilization. The author also takes a different view on some subjects such as environmentalism. The book is pro-environment, but anti-environmentalist. One of the goals of the hostile aliens is to push humans to turn green and give up on advancing technology, in order to make them easier to conquer. I don't think the author is making a parallel to Western insistence on Chinese pollution reduction, but perhaps this political conflict and China's own development path influenced this view. It also brings to mind China's different position in the world relative to the West and its different outlook. China is trying to send men to the Moon, while Western societies are working on reducing the impact of Man on Nature. Today, China seeks to dominate Nature and unlock its secrets, while the West becomes increasingly opposed to scientific advancement. The Chinese government is leading the push back to the Moon, for example, while in America it is a small number of wealthy enthusiasts driving the space exploration/development movement. China is racing to unlock the human genome, while Westerners question the morality of it. China is working to develop next generation nuclear power, while the U.S. already invented it in the 1960s before all but abandoning nuclear power in the subsequent decades. Those examples overstate the situation, but in terms of the trend, the Chinese are moving in a more ambitious and risk taking direction culturally, while the West becomes more cautious.

Perhaps more than any other subject, the book is a great insight into modern Chinese thinking about the Cultural Revolution. The book begins during the Cultural Revolution, and without giving too much away, it is the Cultural Revolution that sets off the possible extinction of Man because the protagonist's response to the Cultural Revolution is to wish the destruction of all mankind. Although it is not often openly discussed in China, the Cultural Revolution is not a taboo subject. It is the darkest period in modern Chinese history, and one of the darkest of all of human history, because the goal was not the destruction of the body, but of the soul and society itself. Many older Chinese refuse to speak of what happened during that time. When the Bo Xilai saga erupted in 2012, the Cultural Revolution was invoked. Bo Xilai had signaled a desire to move back in a Maoist direction and for all the corruption he and his wife were involved in, I firmly believe it was his Maoist tendencies that did him in. (See Leadership succession battle in China goes public as Wen slams Bo Xilai on Wednesday; Communist party fires Bo Xilai on Thursday and China stirs up the Cultural Revolution; full-scale attack on leftists for some background.) One reason why democracy and Western ideologies such as feminism are such a hard sell in China is the legacy of the Cultural Revolution, and Westerners seem to under appreciate how much of an effect it still has on Chinese society. The Cultural Revolution is like a Big Bang for modern China and the country is still moving away from it. Some Western concepts still being advanced in the West today were already taken to extremes almost 50 years ago in China (such as gender equality).

I've seen this book described as the best science fiction novel of 2014 (when it was first published in English) and based on what I've read in the past year, I agree. In addition to a great science fiction story that contemplates Man's place in the universe, however, is a peek inside modern China. I would recommend it to anyone interest in sci-fi, but for those interested in China, there's a lot more to the story.

Kindle Edition: The Three-Body Problem