Chinese writers have to reckon not only with their own government but with the US government. This post deals with events from 2020, but they relate to the issues of the upcoming Chengdu Worldcon and its guest of honor.

In 2020, Netflix announced plans for a series based on Cixin Liu’s The Three-Body Problem and its sequels. As far as I can tell (my Netflix subscription is currently inactive), it’s still in the works. Earlier, five U.S. senators pressured Netflix to drop it. Their reason was some remarks which the author had made in a New Yorker interview. When asked about the Chinese government’s treatment of the Uyghurs, he said, “If anything, the government is helping their economy and trying to lift them out of poverty. If you were to loosen up the country a bit, the consequences would be terrifying.”

The notion of “lifting people out of poverty” by putting them into brutal concentration camps is, of course, outrageous. We have to consider Cixin’s position, though. If he had spoken against the Chinese government’s treatment of the Uyghurs, his writing career would have promptly ended, and he might have suffered worse consequences. The Chinese government’s recent threats against anyone who criticizes it at the Olympics have reminded us of that. Also, he’s doubtless been fed steady misinformation by the censored Chinese media.

More important, American government officials have no business telling anyone what shows to make based on their opinion of the author. They can express their opinion of the project, just as any private citizen can, but when they use their office to put pressure on the show’s creators, they’ve stepped out of bounds. No one is claiming the show takes advantage of the treatment of Uyghurs, as Disney inexcusably did when creating the live-action Mulan, or that the show expresses approval of it. The senators want Netflix to drop The Three-Body Problem because of ideas the author has expressed elsewhere.

I’ve read The Three-Body Problem, though not its sequels. It opens with a sequence showing how destructive China’s Cultural Revolution was. Apparently criticizing the Cultural Revolution is currently permissible, or at least it was when the book was published. Further on in the book, aliens use nanotech surveillance and disruption to slow down the advancement of Earth’s science. I’m inclined to read this as a subtle dig at the Chinese government’s policies. People are denied access to information and are controlled in a way that doesn’t require overt violence. If that was his intention, it took courage.

If you speak in defense of Chinese people against government actions, though, you run into the drip-by-drip innuendos that have been disturbingly successful in keeping people quiet. We aren’t exactly told that it’s “red scare racist” to defend the Chinese; we’re just told that something, which is never specified, is racist. Might it be “racist” to object when American senators try to intimidate the creators of a show based on Cixin’s work? Are the senators “racist” for objecting to China’s treatment of the Uyghurs? No objective answer is possible when everything is hints and context-free accusations of unspecified people.

I’m not suggesting moral parity between the US and Chinese governments. The senators weren’t able to stop Netflix from proceeding. Free speech is under attack here, but it’s still strong. But when Chinese writers get it from both sides, who’s left to defend them?

Addendum: Here’s another case of a US institution attacking a Chinese person. A student described as “Chinese-Australian” put up some satirical posters at George Washington University in DC, directed at the Chinese government’s oppressive shadow over the Olympics. University president Mark Wrighton was outraged.

Correction: I had previously attributed the following statement to Wrighton. According to the Reason.com website, it was issued by the Chinese Cultural Association, which wanted to sic the police on the creator of the posters. Wrighton expressed support for the Chinese Cultural Association’s desires.

This series of posters incites not only intra-ethnic hatred in China but also inter-ethnic hostility and inter-cultural contempt. We believe that George Washington University supports equality and inclusion and that students at George Washington University are friendly and united. Posters with such hateful messages are not only uncomfortable and provoke ethnic relations within the Chinese student body, but they also provoke friendships between Chinese international students and their peers from around the world.

However, Wrighton is a coward. When faced with publicity, he abruptly apologized.