Cixin Liu's Postscript for the American Edition for “The Three Body Problem”

I think it's true in those circumstances, but I don't believe that's part of a systematic policy.

I would imagine that the possibility of Cixin Liu leaving would be contingent on whatever the idiosyncrasies are of his personal circumstances. I would say he's not necessarily constrained by the examples you've cited, though they raise a valid concern.

This seems like the most controversial bit here:

> There’s a strange contradiction revealed by the naïveté and kindness demonstrated by humanity when faced with the universe: On Earth, humankind can step onto another continent, and without a thought, destroy the kindred civilizations found there through warfare and disease. But when they gaze up at the stars, they turn sentimental and believe that if extraterrestrial intelligences exist, they must be civilizations bound by universal, noble, moral constraints, as if cherishing and loving different forms of life are parts of a self-evident universal code of conduct.

> I think it should be precisely the opposite: Let’s turn the kindness we show toward the stars to members of the human race on Earth and build up the trust and understanding between the different peoples and civilizations that make up humanity. But for the universe outside the solar system, we should be ever vigilant, and be ready to attribute the worst of intentions to any Others that might exist in space. For a fragile civilization like ours, this is without a doubt the most responsible path.

I think his books a good reminder that even the interstellar equivalent of saying "howdy neighbor" is incredibly risky. And I agree that we should behave better towards each other even if I don't look forward to "a day when humanity will form a harmonious whole" if that means world government and suppression of "non-harmonious" opinions. On the other hand, I don't think that alien species are doomed to be adversaries. Populations don't need to grow forever exponentially, and empires don't need to always expand.

For my part, I think we should be careful about announcing our presence and should be very careful around any alien civilization, especially those that are more technologically advanced than ourselves. But we also could learn a lot from each other, and so initially being friendly and abiding by a tit-for-tat strategy if they become aggressive seems like a good approach.

I am a Chinese living in Europe. Almost all the articles in media I read in Western media on China are negative. They only talk about HK, Uyghurs. But China has many exciting things happening and very dynamic. But in another hand, I saw the western media just criticize everything, it's like the whole world only has negative things happening. I personally don't hate the Chinese government. The people's living standard is hugely improved these two decades, and my friends in China are mostly happy about their life.

> The current CCP consists of those who pushed back against the excesses of the cultural revolution

No...

At maximum, "cultural revolutionaries" were just silenced for one generation.

The press isn’t just supposed to report government propaganda of how everything is going great because invariable while some people are benefitting, others are suffering.

Be it the civilians in Yemen being starved by a Saudi-led American backed proxy war, or the Uyghurs in Xinjiang.

Yes, China has raised a huge number of people out of poverty, mostly thanks to Deng inviting in foreign investment, but Xi is turning China into a surveillance state, using a few terrorist events to justify large scale oppression in Xinjiang, and the CCP is on balance, a corrupt inner circle of grifters getting rich off the economic rise. How does China’s parliament delegates have 100 billionaires in it?

Xi’s family net worth has widely been reported to be hundreds of millions. How did they earn it?

I’m not willing to give my own government a pass for the good things they’ve done (eg Obama on healthcare) and excuse the bad things they’ve done (extrajudicial drone killings)

And I don’t think giving a free pass on massive Corruption, an oppressive police state in Xinjiang, etc is justified because the economy is good.

So invariably someone’s going to claim I’m just getting my info from bias western media, but I’ll just tell you I have traveled all over Xinjiang and speak passable Mandarin, in addition to having lived in China for a while. You can quite clearly see the overwhelming security apparatus in Xinjiang on every street corner and road, and I don’t need CNN to tell what my eyes see.

Like White people dismissing the conditions of Black people in the US, it’s really easy for Han Chinese to think the Uyghur minority concerns are blown out of proportion. I had many Han friends tell me not to go to Xinjiang, that it was far too dangerous. The reality is, I never once felt threatened by Uyghurs, they were incredibly friendly and hospitable. I was more nervous from soldiers with rifles everywhere, and constant road checkpoints demanding my photo and passport every few kilometers.

If you live in a Tier-1/Tier-2/Tier-3 city, it's really easy to dismiss the complaints of minority provinces or rural poor, especially when the one view of what's happening you get comes from state media.

I love China, am hopeful by its steady rise, and the world will be a better place with another advanced wealthy civilization of a billion people, and hopefully the whole 7 billion people on the planet can be uplifted. But it is not going to be served by a corrupt authoritarian government of grifters getting more and more control and power over of a large fraction of the world's economy and people.

Are the foreign press wrong to worry about China building massive dams and threatening India's water supply for example? Pakistan, China, and India are involved in a 3 way war over fresh water that affects 2+ billion people, and all of them have nuclear weapons.

The press should be looking at things that are harmful, not just saying "Good job government". FDR did a lot of good things for the US, but he also locked up 100,000+ Japanese in camps. The founding fathers did a lot of good in writing the US Constitution, but they also owned slaves. Criticism of government is a good thing.