Are Beijing and Washington Testing the Dark Forest Hypothesis?
.By Jersey Lee
A TV spin-off may explain why China and the U.S. have
chosen not to shoot first and ask questions later.
Last week, Netflix released Three-Body Problem, its widely anticipated TV adaptation of the acclaimed novels by science fiction author Liu Cixin. While met with broadly positive responses from U.S. viewers, Chinese audiences took a much less favourable stance, with some accusing Netflix of hyping up the Cultural Revolution to make China look bad, or “white-washing” the cast for nefarious purposes. Its rating on the Chinese review site Douban stands at 6.8, with one in five voters giving it only one or two stars out of five.
This is but a microcosm of the increased disconnect and cultural friction between China and the West. Hollywood films have now almost completely lost the Chinese market, and after the controversy over the live-action Mulan film, there’s an increased sense in Hollywood that catering to Chinese audiences might be more trouble than it’s worth. Meanwhile, many Chinese no longer trust Western studios to tell stories concerning China, believing that the filmmakers might manipulate the content to score geopolitical points.
The Three-Body Problem has been frequently used as a metaphor for relations between China and the West. In the book series, Earth is faced with an invasion by the technologically superior alien Trisolarans. Many see Earth as corresponding to Indigenous peoples, specifically pre-Opium War China, and Trisolarans representing Western countries that conquered the world, first through advanced arms, later through pervasive cultural influence.
https://www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2024/04/02/are_beijing_and_washington_testing_the_dark_forest_hypothesis_1022294.html
