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Bloomberg

Twenty-year-old Hua Xia waits patiently in a Beijing conference hall for his chance to chat about alien invasions with Liu Cixin, China’s most-popular science fiction writer, who counts Barack Obama and Mark Zuckerberg among his readers.
Carrying a book he hopes to have autographed, Hua explains it was Liu’s novel The Three-Body Problem that led him to decide to study aircraft design.
“Science fiction has a power to call on your spirit,” said Hua, who is now a second-year student at Beihang University in Beijing.
“It shows me the most imaginative, enchanting and exciting part of science. That makes me believe that working on science would be a very cool career.”
Wagering that there are many just like Hua, China’s leaders have started a campaign to popularise science, including a three-day conference in Beijing this past week that featured Nobel laureates, exhibitions and the science fiction panel at which Liu spoke.
Xi Jinping urges China to go all in on scientific self-reliance after ZTE case exposes hi-tech gaps
Also there to stress the importance of the effort was Wang Huning, a member of the seven-man Politburo Standing Committee, who told the attendees that China’s future hinged on technological innovation.
Trade tensions with the US and suspicions that President Donald Trump’s ultimate aim is to thwart China’s rise have added urgency to those efforts.
An April ban on ZTE, China’s second-biggest maker of gear for mobile-phone networks, from buying US products crippled the company because of its reliance on American technology such as semiconductors.
Refusing China access to technologies could actually produce an unintended result, according to author Liu. It will drive China to strengthen its own innovation and research capabilities, he said in a brief interview after signing autographs and taking selfies with his fans.
“We are too dependent on chip imports because chips can be bought easily,” Liu said. “We are leading in space technologies because there’s a blockade.”
China’s golden-age of science fiction pushes new boundaries at Hong Kong conference
In The Three-Body Problem, Liu tells the story of how a more advanced alien race takes steps to halt scientific advancements on Earth.
Liu thinks science fiction can contribute to China’s technology push by inspiring the imagination of its readers. But he is quick to add that without education and greater science literacy, literature will not affect innovation.
Until 2014, the 55-year-old Liu was a full-time engineer at a state-owned power plant. It was that year The Three-Body Problem was translated into English and a year later when he became the first Chinese writer to win the Hugo Award, which recognises achievement in science fiction writing. Another Chinese author, Hao Jingfang, won the Hugo Award in 2016.
China is home to at least 80 million science-fiction fans, Yao Haijun, editor-in-chief of the Chinese magazine Science Fiction World, estimated in 2016.
In addition to popularising science, China is also changing the way the subject is taught. The Ministry of Education last year added science as a compulsory subject for primary school students, with courses focused more on hands-on experiments than textbooks.
Secrets of bright future lie in human successes and holding elites responsible, insists science fiction guru
In the eastern province of Zhejiang, information technology and coding were added as subjects to the college entrance exam on a trial basis in 2017.
Another fan waiting to met Liu was Wang Jing, who travelled to Beijing from the city of Xian in western China to participate in the conference. She says the way science is now taught in many Chinese schools is “a bit boring”.
Wang is an executive at Xian CAS Star, an incubator for start-ups founded under the auspices of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. Her team in Xian also recently opened an exhibition hall of 3,000 square metres, built around the theme of China’s Shenzhou spaceships. They hope that it, like the space centres in the US opened by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, will promote an affinity for science.
“Nasa is definitely a benchmark,” said Wang, who was hoping to invite Liu to a conference in Xian. “We still have a lot of catching up to do.”


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Science

China using sci-fi to popularise science as it ups tech efforts

Liu Cixin, author of The Three-Body Problem. Photo: Liu Cixin

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China

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Science & Research

As it boosts its technological capabilities, the country is changing how science is taught in schools and hopes science fiction can help capture the imagination
