At the end of the day, Liu Cixin is just one man. One man's opinion isn't indicative of wider opinions so I don't know that there is much utility in doing a deep dive of this man's opinions when we both already agree that he is just a lib. Even if we could accurately parse his opinions from his body of work, all we would know is the idiosyncrasies of one man, and I seriously doubt he is the Chinese whisperer. I might read Hao Jingfang's Vagabonds but I won't assume she has a finger on the pulse of the Chinese either. Or I might not read it either and just dismiss it as the Chinese knock off novelization of Aldnoah.Zero. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, and pop culture is just pop culture, regardless of origin.
Literature is the study of "just one person", over and over again, which in aggregate maybe gives us insight into the human condition. To dismiss the need to think critically about art in such a way is... disappointing, no matter how crass or commercial said art is. I never meant to suggest that Liu Cixin spoke for the entire Chinese Proletariat, but rather to ask the questions "Why would the Chinese author incorporate these particular themes and motifs in his work, especially given his background and the historical period he finds himself in?" and "What can the widespread success of this work, and widespread adoption of the ideas held within, tell us about the world we find ourselves in?" The answers I landed upon might be wrong, but to be so uncurious as to not pursue any line of inquiry in the first place is... deeply disappointing.
That his account of the Cultural Revolution is written from a liberal perspective should make it even more valuable to leftists, in some ways. Knowing what a representative of the intelligentsia thinks about that event in the biggest Actually Existing Socialist nation might give us a clue as to how it's going. Or not. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, as you say.
Or I might not read it
Which would be a shame, since Vagabonds is rather an explicitly leftist work.
If you really want to break down this book to sus out Liu Cixin's politics then don't let me stop you. I'd be happy to read it, but by this point in this thread, you'll likely only have an audience of one. My concerns would be that it wouldn't be fun, since as you said, this is mid-level sci-fi and I'd say Liu is probably little more than a mid-level thinker. It would be like trying to gain insight into the American condition by examining the depiction of television production in John Scalzi's Redshirts. Very often pop sci-fi is just pop sci-fi.
But moreover, I'm not sure I know enough about Chinese politics to ascertain whether your understanding of it is correct. You said China (or it's populace) is isolationist, but I don't know how to square that interpretation with the Belt and Road Initiative. Likewise you talk about how they feel technologically constrained by the west, but they manufacture all of our consumer products, they're a nuclear power, and they're kicking off another space race. And perhaps Call of Duty is propaganda, but it's very obviously aimed at American audiences and is of little interest to the Chinese. If you had a Korean gatcha game smuggling ideology into communist China I'd be all ears to such an argument, but then again, Genshin is out capitalizing the west better than the capitalists could do to themselves.
I'd just make a new thread, but the problem would be me finding the time to do a deep dive.
It would be like trying to gain insight into the American condition by examining the depiction of television production in John Scalzi’s Redshirts.
And what is wrong with that? What if we examined Redshirts alongside Star Trek, then examined which tropes were being lampooned- and used that to see how far we've moved away from the ideas expressed in the original show, of a specific vision of the future- to one that's maybe more cynical? And maybe look and see which tropes were conserved, which values were kept between iterations. And then see what that tells us.
But moreover, I’m not sure I know enough about Chinese politics to ascertain whether your understanding of it is correct.
So my understanding of it could be correct? Although, I will not claim to be an expert on Chinese foreign policy.
However, China will not pull up the drawbridge and retreat to isolation completely. China will turn its back on the West but still keep its door open to non-Western countries by promoting the Belt and Road Initiative and investing in Russia, Africa, South America, Southeast Asia, and other developing economies. These are like-minded countries with a similar history of being colonized and humiliated by the West, plus strongman traditions and interests in seeking financial assistance from China. Developing countries will be happier than the West to see a partially open China.
I will encourage you to read the full article, as it gives a fuller understanding of current Chinese foreign policy by laying out the different near-future scenarios China can find itself in. Again, I will remind you that we are discussing the book and how it reflects the fears of, if not the Chinese people, then at least the author- rather than the actual geopolitical situation. But the initial point I was making was that China has abandoned International Communism, as envisioned by the Internationale and Comintern, in favour of "win-win cooperation"- so if say, a Maoist revolution succeeded in Myanmar, it would be extremely unlikely that China would commit its armed forces in defense of international communism should Myanmar be invaded by a hostile power bent on toppling the new communist regime, no matter how crucial that country is to the Belt and Road Initiative- and that Dark Forest Theory is really just a literary metaphor for Chinese foreign policy, more specifically the defensive strategy of not broadcasting your position.
Then again, a huge part of the book is also about how humanity's response to a global crisis requires that China be integrated into a neoliberal international framework. Maybe isolationist was too strong a word.
Likewise you talk about how they feel technologically constrained by the west
Maybe the videogame in Three Body Problem is a metaphor for hegemonic media in general, rather than a one-to-one comparison to a title that I came up with off-the-cuff? A big plot point of the book is that the evil alien's are recruiting the affluent and well-educated with their videogame, which constantly bombards the player with how great the aliens are. Creating a brain drain, in other words. And while heavily propagandized in the West, these fears of a brain drain were quite real in China.
Also, just gonna point out that the Three Body Problem was first printed in 2006, waaaaaay before Genshin Impact became a thing. Back then, there were major doubts about China's ability to project soft-power, and it's only with the recent successes of things like The Wolf Warrior series were that view has begun to shift.
Having said all this- the point isn't about whether my understanding of Chinese politics is right or not, or even whether my understanding of the book is right or not. The point is to find out whether or not the book has ideas, and if we can read those ideas from the book and maybe use them to learn something. Even (especially!) if those ideas could come from a perspective outside our own- I replied to OP initially because I felt like they missed a perspective that could help them look at the book in a new light.
At the end of the day, Liu Cixin is just one man. One man's opinion isn't indicative of wider opinions so I don't know that there is much utility in doing a deep dive of this man's opinions when we both already agree that he is just a lib. Even if we could accurately parse his opinions from his body of work, all we would know is the idiosyncrasies of one man, and I seriously doubt he is the Chinese whisperer. I might read Hao Jingfang's Vagabonds but I won't assume she has a finger on the pulse of the Chinese either. Or I might not read it either and just dismiss it as the Chinese knock off novelization of Aldnoah.Zero. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, and pop culture is just pop culture, regardless of origin.
Literature is the study of "just one person", over and over again, which in aggregate maybe gives us insight into the human condition. To dismiss the need to think critically about art in such a way is... disappointing, no matter how crass or commercial said art is. I never meant to suggest that Liu Cixin spoke for the entire Chinese Proletariat, but rather to ask the questions "Why would the Chinese author incorporate these particular themes and motifs in his work, especially given his background and the historical period he finds himself in?" and "What can the widespread success of this work, and widespread adoption of the ideas held within, tell us about the world we find ourselves in?" The answers I landed upon might be wrong, but to be so uncurious as to not pursue any line of inquiry in the first place is... deeply disappointing.
That his account of the Cultural Revolution is written from a liberal perspective should make it even more valuable to leftists, in some ways. Knowing what a representative of the intelligentsia thinks about that event in the biggest Actually Existing Socialist nation might give us a clue as to how it's going. Or not. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, as you say.
Which would be a shame, since Vagabonds is rather an explicitly leftist work.
If you really want to break down this book to sus out Liu Cixin's politics then don't let me stop you. I'd be happy to read it, but by this point in this thread, you'll likely only have an audience of one. My concerns would be that it wouldn't be fun, since as you said, this is mid-level sci-fi and I'd say Liu is probably little more than a mid-level thinker. It would be like trying to gain insight into the American condition by examining the depiction of television production in John Scalzi's Redshirts. Very often pop sci-fi is just pop sci-fi.
But moreover, I'm not sure I know enough about Chinese politics to ascertain whether your understanding of it is correct. You said China (or it's populace) is isolationist, but I don't know how to square that interpretation with the Belt and Road Initiative. Likewise you talk about how they feel technologically constrained by the west, but they manufacture all of our consumer products, they're a nuclear power, and they're kicking off another space race. And perhaps Call of Duty is propaganda, but it's very obviously aimed at American audiences and is of little interest to the Chinese. If you had a Korean gatcha game smuggling ideology into communist China I'd be all ears to such an argument, but then again, Genshin is out capitalizing the west better than the capitalists could do to themselves.
I'd just make a new thread, but the problem would be me finding the time to do a deep dive.
And what is wrong with that? What if we examined Redshirts alongside Star Trek, then examined which tropes were being lampooned- and used that to see how far we've moved away from the ideas expressed in the original show, of a specific vision of the future- to one that's maybe more cynical? And maybe look and see which tropes were conserved, which values were kept between iterations. And then see what that tells us.
So my understanding of it could be correct? Although, I will not claim to be an expert on Chinese foreign policy.
Let's go through these point by point.
Here's a very interesting article on how the Belt and Road Initiative can play into a semi-isolationist strategy, written by a Chinese expert on US foreign policy and Sino-US relations.
Relevant quote:
I will encourage you to read the full article, as it gives a fuller understanding of current Chinese foreign policy by laying out the different near-future scenarios China can find itself in. Again, I will remind you that we are discussing the book and how it reflects the fears of, if not the Chinese people, then at least the author- rather than the actual geopolitical situation. But the initial point I was making was that China has abandoned International Communism, as envisioned by the Internationale and Comintern, in favour of "win-win cooperation"- so if say, a Maoist revolution succeeded in Myanmar, it would be extremely unlikely that China would commit its armed forces in defense of international communism should Myanmar be invaded by a hostile power bent on toppling the new communist regime, no matter how crucial that country is to the Belt and Road Initiative- and that Dark Forest Theory is really just a literary metaphor for Chinese foreign policy, more specifically the defensive strategy of not broadcasting your position.
Then again, a huge part of the book is also about how humanity's response to a global crisis requires that China be integrated into a neoliberal international framework. Maybe isolationist was too strong a word.
China still can't self-sufficiently manufacture semiconductors yet. A trade blockade targeting semiconductors would have grave implications for China's self-defense.
Maybe the videogame in Three Body Problem is a metaphor for hegemonic media in general, rather than a one-to-one comparison to a title that I came up with off-the-cuff? A big plot point of the book is that the evil alien's are recruiting the affluent and well-educated with their videogame, which constantly bombards the player with how great the aliens are. Creating a brain drain, in other words. And while heavily propagandized in the West, these fears of a brain drain were quite real in China.
Also, just gonna point out that the Three Body Problem was first printed in 2006, waaaaaay before Genshin Impact became a thing. Back then, there were major doubts about China's ability to project soft-power, and it's only with the recent successes of things like The Wolf Warrior series were that view has begun to shift.
Having said all this- the point isn't about whether my understanding of Chinese politics is right or not, or even whether my understanding of the book is right or not. The point is to find out whether or not the book has ideas, and if we can read those ideas from the book and maybe use them to learn something. Even (especially!) if those ideas could come from a perspective outside our own- I replied to OP initially because I felt like they missed a perspective that could help them look at the book in a new light.