Even before streaming platform Netflix aired "3 Body Problem" last week, Chinese nationalists were upset about the adaptation of the Chinese science fiction novel series and its international popularity.
On social media sites in China, where Netflix is blocked, some criticized the platform’s cast and changes to the story while others accused it of deliberately using a tragic moment in the country’s past to belittle the world’s second-largest economy.
The novel The Three-Body Problem by Liu Cixin was first serialized in the Chinese magazine Science Fiction World in 2016. It tells the story of a group of scientists, policemen and soldiers from China who discovered and tried to defeat an invasion of aliens from the distant universe.
In 2015, The Three-Body Problem became the first Asian novel to win the Hugo Award for Best Novel, given at the 73rd World Science Fiction Convention.
Former U.S. President Barack Obama once said, "The scope of it was immense." Mark Zuckerberg, president of the technology company Meta, publicly recommended the book.
Josh Stenberg, associate professor of Chinese studies at the University of Sydney, attributed the popularity of The Three-Body Problem in the Western world to the universality of the novel's themes.
"Liu is deeply skeptical about humanity's worth and pessimistic about its future. That can work for environmental, post-colonial, nationalistic, nihilist or posthuman perspectives," he told VOA via email.
The Netflix version has made major changes from the novel, moving the location of the story from China to London and erasing the Chinese backgrounds of many of the characters.
Author Liu is one of the show's consultants. In a recent interview, he said, "Netflix's ‘3 Body Problem' series is for audiences around the world. Most of its characters may no longer be Chinese, which may not be easy for Chinese audiences to accept. But I still have full confidence in them and look forward to the show."
But some Chinese netizens disagree. Before the series aired, some posted videos and comments online criticizing the series and accusing it of being stereotypical. Others mocked the series by editing clips from the show and posting them in video commentaries.
Some netizens accused Netflix of intentionally putting China in a bad light by removing some Chinese characters' backstories and making them purely evil or simplifying some remaining Chinese characters' storylines to make them insignificant while making the characters portrayed by actors of other ethnic groups heroes in the show.
Jovan Adepo, a Black actor in the series, plays one of the characters critics have been smearing.
The actor who plays the Chinese character Ye Wenjie was also the focus of attacks. A popular article on WeChat criticized Chinese American actor Zine Tseng as "beaming with her fierce eyes and an evil look on her face, giving people the impression that she is the kind of Asian female killer that often appears in Hollywood."
Other criticisms of the show focused on the re-creation of scenes from China’s Cultural Revolution.
Much like in the novel, the series starts off with a denunciation meeting in Beijing during the Cultural Revolution, where young Ye watched helplessly as her father, a physics professor, was beaten to death by Red Guards — communist zealots who played a key part in the chaos of that tumultuous period. During China’s Cultural Revolution, tens of millions were persecuted, and historians estimate that 1 million to 2 million people were killed.
Many nationalist netizens accused Netflix of filming the entire series just to show this scene.
"When I read [the novel] for the first time a few years ago, after reading the beginning, I immediately knew why this book was praised abroad," one netizen wrote. Another said Netflix “made this whole tray of dumplings just for little bit of vinegar sauce” — a reference to that bitter part of China’s past.
A film review on the Chinese website Douban, a community-centered rating site for books and movies, said that the West was unwilling to accept today's developed China.
"In the eyes of foreigners, China is still that repressive, backward and crazy stereotype. All disasters stem from this. The Chinese are not worthy of saving the world and can only wait for the West to save it," the article reads.
China aired its own version of the show in 2023, with most of the main characters being Chinese. The show was well received by the Chinese audience and was one of the highest-rated Chinese TV series on Douban in 2023. That version, however, did not include the Cultural Revolution denunciation meeting.
VOA reached out to Netflix for comment and did not receive any response by the time of publication.
Henry Gao, a law professor at Singapore Management University, said it's no surprise that The Three-Body Problem has found a cult following among nationalists. He said the theory of the jungle in the novel coincides with the narrative model of Chinese cybernationalism and China's relationship with the world.
"This narrative consists of two parts. The first part is that 'imperialism is determined to destroy us,' and the second part is that in the world, we must rely on strength to speak, and if we fall behind, we will be beaten," Gao told VOA. "And the dark forest hypothesis in The Three-Body Problem clearly reflects this view, so it's not surprising that nationalists have embraced it."
The dark forest hypothesis states that the universe is a dark forest, and each civilization is a hunter with a gun, posing a threat to all others. Once they meet, it will inevitably be a life-or-death relationship.
Although The Three-Body Problem is not a depiction of the current state of international politics, such interpretations of the novel are not uncommon.
Will Peyton, a visiting fellow at Australian National University, told VOA, "When Liu's trilogy became popular in the English-speaking world a decade ago, its popularity was quickly tethered to talk of China's geopolitical ascendancy."
Peyton says the theme of the novel is what kind of help or disaster the rapid development of science and technology will bring to humankind.
"It is far deeper than a surface-level sociopolitical critique of contemporary China or of China's role on the world stage," he said.
Liu has stated many times that he is not trying to express any political views through his novels. In a 2019 interview with The New Yorker, he said, "I'm a writer. ... I don't begin with some conceit in mind. I'm just trying to tell a good story."
Adrianna Zhang contributed to this report.
