The adaptation of Chinese author Liu Cixin’s science fiction novel “Three Bodies” into a television series has drawn the attention of five Republican U.S. federal senators, who have called on the company to think twice about its plans to air the series.
Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee, Rick Scott of Florida, Kevin Cramer of North Dakota, Thom Tillis of North Carolina and Martha McSally of Arizona. The senator sent a letter to Nefly co-CEO Ted Sarandos on Wednesday (Sept. 23), asking him to “seriously reconsider” his plan to turn Liu Cixin’s science fiction trilogy The Three Stooges into a television series, in light of Liu’s interview with The New Yorker last year. In an interview with the New Yorker, Nefly justified the Chinese government’s mass detention of Uighur Muslims.
The senators accused Nefly of participating in the “normalization” of criminal behavior against Uighurs, and asked the company to answer several questions, including the extent of its knowledge of the Xinjiang internment camps prior to reaching the agreement with Liu Cixin, the company’s comments about “those who publicly or privately promote a culture of criminality” with Nefly. What is the policy of “Public Figure and Principle Inconsistent with Principle” and does it agree that “it is unacceptable for the Chinese Communist Party to imprison 1.8 to 3 million Uyghurs in internment or labor camps because of their ethnicity?
Representatives of the company have not yet commented on the matter.
In recent years, the Chinese government has sent what is believed to be more than one million Uighur and other Muslim minority Muslims to re-education camps in Xinjiang.
The Chinese government denies the existence of re-education or internment camps in Xinjiang, saying the facilities are “vocational skills education and training centers” set up for “preventive” counterterrorism and de-radicalization purposes.
Nefly announced earlier this month a project to adapt Liu Cixin’s science fiction novel The Three Stooges.
Last summer, The New Yorker magazine published a lengthy article on Liu Cixin. When the author of the article referred to the Chinese government’s imprisonment of Uighurs in Xinjiang, Liu Cixin replied, “Would you rather they chop people up in train stations and schools and carry out terrorist attacks? If anything, the government is helping their economy and helping them out of poverty.”
“If you regulate this country loosely, the consequences will be dire,” said Liu Cixin. “The truth is, if you were to become president of China tomorrow, you would find that you would have no choice but to do exactly what he has done.”
Liu Cixin is currently one of China’s most influential science fiction writers. He has won the Galaxy Award, the highest award for science fiction writing in China, nine times. The trilogy, consisting of Three Bodies, Three Bodies II: The Dark Forest, and Three Bodies III: Death Immortal, has been translated into more than 20 languages and has sold 80 million copies worldwide. The English version of Trinity won the Hugo Award in 2015, the first Asian author to do so.
Nefly is not the first U.S. company to stir up controversy over a joint project involving China.
Disney’s live-action film Mulan has also been condemned by some U.S. senators for shooting some of its locations in Xinjiang and thanking its public security and propaganda departments at the end of the film.
Republican Senator Josh Hawley of Missouri sent a letter to Disney executives condemning the company for “whitewashing the ongoing genocide of the Uighurs and other Muslim minorities” during the production of Mulan.
This week, the U.S. House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed two bills dealing with forced labor in Xinjiang – the Forced Uighur Labor Prevention Act and the Forced Uighur Labor Disclosure Act.
The Uighur Human Rights Act, which passed Congress earlier this year with strong bipartisan support in both chambers, was signed into law by President Trump on June 17.
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