The cover of Three Body II, the second novel in a sci-fi trilogy by Liu Cixin

　　The cover of Subway by Han Song

Development of modern Chinese science fiction has matured despite a rise of grim subject matter dominated by chaotic, apocalyptic scenarios.

Three Body, a sci-fi novel trilogy by Liu Cixin from 2006 to 2010, is based on an invasion of Earth by the alien Trisolarans, a civilization whose home world is rendered uninhabitable because of its unstable gravitational environment. The title refers to the three-body problem in orbital mechanics.

Similar dystopia is portrayed in Wang Jinkang’s Life of Ants (2007), in which people from an ordered, Utopian society suffer a series of tragedies.

Han Song’s novels Subway (2010) and High-speed Rail (2012) depict bullet trains as carriers of masses of people shuttling back and forth in underground and aboveground graveyards.

All these fictional works share one common trait in that science is held as the root cause of catastrophic disasters.

Confidence in mankind

However, fear of scientific development indicates confidence in mankind to some extent.

Although evil-minded humans fight against their fellow man cruelly in Three Body, they remain the most kind-hearted species in the universe; although the present-day human civilization pales in comparison with alien civilizations, they remain the most intelligent species; although humans feel unprepared for the attack of extra-terrestrials and make continual concessions, they ultimately triumph; and although the universe turns upside down and planets seek hegemony, Earth remains the dominant power.

Wang’s novels maintain that human development is phased, so that any development that goes beyond the defined phase will result in tragedy.

For example, everyone longs to be immortal and tries every means to prolong life. However, when they do live forever, they face unbearable loneliness.

In About Life and Death (2003), also by Wang, the 170-year-old Xiao Shuihan has no choice but to kill himself and end immortality for humankind in the belief that if every person lives forever, the world will be overturned and the order of human society will break down.

Han Song expressed the same concern in his works, in which the human race builds material civilization to improve life quality at the cost of weakening happiness.

Self-destruction of man

Since scientific development actually cannot bring happiness, would humankind stop pursuing it? The answer from Chinese sci-fi writers is a resounding “no.” They attribute the destruction of mankind to humans themselves. Man will, out of instinct, forever pursue scientific development at his peril.

Sci-fi columnist Xinghe, formerly known as Guo Wei, in his serialized works Dueling on the Internet portrayed a struggle between “I” and computer viruses created by humanity.

“We believe that part of some DNA in the human body stems from the virus,” he wrote. Based on this reasoning, he assumed “I” as a computer virus. By battling computer viruses, the protagonist “I” is dueling with itself in the fiction.

Desire, exploration and creation form part of a cycle that pushes mankind forward and contributes to human civilization and world prosperity. However, it also drives humanity to a dead end.

Seeking solutions

Chinese sci-fi writers have offered their solutions to addressing these problems. Liu put forward the theory of “universe morals,” claiming that other planets are not predecessors and guides of humankind, but competitors and destroyers. In order to resolve inter-planetary conflict and bring peace and tranquility to the universe, it is a must to formulate rules, or “universe morals,” that all planets shall respect.

Wang suggested ceasing endless exploration and bringing all back to nature. In his novel The Song of Life (2011), robot Yuanyuan and its creator professor Kong Zhaoren share a father-and-son-like relationship. However, when Kong senses Yuanyuan’s evil intentions and realizes the danger of his own scientific exploration, he ends his research and disables Yuanyuan’s program despite tremendous mental anguish.

Han is not convinced of “universe morals,” nor does he believe that humans can break away from impulse-induced scientific explorations. In his opinion, humanity will corner itself amid the cycling of unceasing explorations, innovations and ordeals.

In High-speed Rail, protagonist Zhou Yuan is given the task of observing society in the high-speed rail amid a search for his wife. Zhou then passes the task on to his son, Zhou Tiesheng. Metaphorically, human scientific explorations go on like this in an endless stream, but they are plagued by evil spirits and nightmares all along.

Reasons for science anxiety

In contemporary Chinese sci-fi, anxiety about the threat of science harming humanity can be ascribed to three factors. Firstly, this is a wider global trend in the genre. Since the “anti-Utopia” movement in the 1930s, science fiction in the world has gone through three eras: space opera in the 1940s; the New Wave movement in the 1960s and 1970s; and cyberpunk in the 1980s.

All of the three eras depicted scientific development as harmful to humanity. Due to this value orientation, almost all sci-fi works count science and technology as human perils; modern Chinese sci-fi is an extension of this form of writing.

Secondly, there is strong anxiety about the reality of China. Rapid development of the Chinese economy is endowing people’s living environment with increasing scientific and technological elements, but a number of pressing problems loom large, such as severe pollution and frequent natural disasters. Science anxiety, at its core, refers to worries about real life and, in this case, the status quo of China.

Thirdly, Chinese sci-fi writers have revolutionized their way of writing. Chinese sci-fi used to be idealized due to two very concrete themes in history.

The first is “rejuvenating the nation through development of science and technology.” Sci-fi works in the late Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) and early Republic of China (1912-1949) were mostly reflective of such a theme.

The second theme is “knowledge education,” which was manifested in sci-fi works published in the 1950s and 1960s based on scientific knowledge.

However, the two themes have since fallen out of favor with the modern Chinese sci-fi community.

“The fact is that we are too happy now. When I was growing up, idolized sci-fi writers failed to truthfully restore the deepest distress of China, including its struggle against the absurd and future uncertainties it faced,” said Han.

The mission of sci-fi is no longer to spread joy, but to reflect upon real problems as exemplified by modern Chinese sci-fi writers.

The authors are from the School of Humanities at Soochow University, Jiangsu Province.

The Chinese link: http://sscp.cssn.cn/xkpd/wx_20167/201409/t20140912_1324833.html

Translated by Chen Mirong

Revised by Tom Fearon